Dockland authority to be wound up

The Government is to wind up the Dublin Dockland Development Authority in the wake of a special report that makes “damning findings” of its activities during the property boom.

The report, by the Comptroller and Auditor General, was published tonight and has disclosed a number of serious shortcomings in the DDDA’s conduct of its planning and development, particularly surrounding its involvement in the purchase of the Irish Glass Bottle site in 2007.

The site was purchased for a total of €431 million by a consortium that included the Authority but is now valued at a little over one tenth of that, at €45m.

It has found that the DDDA informed the Department of the Environment the value of the Irish Glass Bottle site was approximately €220 million at a time it was actively discussing an outlay of over €400m for it.

The Authority did not carry out a detailed risk analysis of the deal, nor did it get the site independently valued before the purchase went ahead, according to the C&AG.

“The failed venture to develop the Irish Glass Bottle site on the Poolbeg peninsula has impacted on the Authority’s financial position,” stated the C&AG. Its total exposure came to €51m after the loans were taken over by NAMA. The authority had total liabilities of €32m at the end of 2010.

It warns about future risks and says there are future “going concern challenges”:

Minister for Environment Phil Hogan tonight confirmed that the Government decided last Tuesday that the DDDA will be wound down over a period of 18 months.

He said that a transitional board, chaired by Dublin City Manager John Tierney, would oversee that process.

The “branding” of the Docklands would be continued, said Mr Hogan, who also added that new arrangements for planning and development in the docklands would be decided by the end of 2013.