Report on stadium project completed

The consultants commissioned by the Government last June to carry out an "independent overview" of the controversial Sports Campus Ireland project have completed their draft report.

London-based risk assessors High Point Rendel presented the draft yesterday to a high-powered steering group consisting of the secretary-generals of four Government departments.

It could lead to the project being deferred, scaled down or scrapped altogether due to worsening economic circumstances, including a fall in the Exchequer surplus, or it might result in it getting the green light.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation said that a final report would be submitted to the Government "early next month" after the steering group had considered the draft.

She said it would then be a matter for the Cabinet to decide whether to publish the report. However, given the scale of the project and the controversy it has generated, publication is seen as inevitable.

Amid fears that the proposed sports campus at Abbotstown, Co Dublin, could end up costing £1 billion or more, pressure from the Tβnaiste, Ms Harney, led to the review being commissioned.

Its purpose was to "assist the Government in determining final Exchequer allocations for Stadium and Sports Campus Ireland and the sensitivity of such allocations to variations in the scale of each element of the project".

The consultants were asked to review the overall approach and contracting strategy adopted by Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Ltd, the State company set up to oversee the project.

They were to advise on the likely Exchequer funding requirement for each facility proposed for the 500-acre campus, as well as future operating costs and revenues and the likely net impact on the Exchequer.

The consultants' brief also included an assessment of the cost of relocating the State laboratories at Abbotstown to other sites and the estimated cost of access infrastructure to serve the proposed sports campus.

Tenders for the project, for which the Government has set a ceiling of £350 million in public funding, closed on June 21st and the final shortlist of bids from three private-sector consortia are still being assessed by CSID.

Although the company has declined to reveal the identities of the bidders, they are understood to be the Prospero consortium, headed by Bovis Land Lease; Walter Bauer, from Germany, and Multiplex, from the US.

It is understood that the financial details of their bids, which were broadly in line with expectations in terms of the level of Exchequer funding required, formed an input into the review by High Point Rendel.