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Whatever decision Dublin Corporation makes this week on the £105 million National Conference Centre and associated high-rise scheme for Spencer Dock - and it is likely to involve a grant of permission with conditions - the Government must intervene to avert an incipient planning disaster. For it is no exaggeration to say that the future shape of Dublin is now at stake. That there has been little public debate about it may simply reflect the fact that Spencer Dock is located in Dublin 1 rather than Dublin 4. Yet its impact would be city-wide.
Ten years ago, when the NCC was first mooted, this State was nearly bankrupt. Public sector borrowing, much of it for current spending, accounted for up to 13 per cent of GNP and we were in danger of losing our international credit rating. The Fianna Fail minority government, led by Charles J. Haughey, adopted a "slash and burn" strategy to curtail public spending, with every department's estimate pored over in minute detail to identify cuts.
Whole agencies were abolished to save money, including the Dublin Transport Authority, established just a year earlier, as well as An Foras Forbartha, the national institute for physical planning, all eight of the regional development organisations and even the first Irish Film Board.
Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that the Government expected the private sector to step in and finance both the construction and operational costs of the proposed conference centre, with the only "public money" - £25 million - coming from Brussels.
THE situation today could not be more different. Not only is the Exchequer in surplus, it is almost groaning under the volume of tax revenue rushing in, with a Budget surplus of £747 million last year and a staggering surplus of £1.7 billion anticipated in the current tax year. And that's before any account is taken of the sale of State assets. So far, £535 million has been raised from the sale of Cablelink while the Telecom Eireann flotation already has yielded £3.3 billion. Still to come are ICC, ACC, TSB, Aer Lingus, Aer Rianta and Coillte Teoranta.
As one economist put it, the Department of Finance "doesn't have a basement big enough to hold all the money that's rolling in" - and this makes it particularly ironic that it is now stressing the need for public-private partnerships to finance public infrastructure. In the case of the National Conference Centre, the present Government even sought an indemnity that it would not be exposed to any operating losses. And, of course, it was not prepared to contribute a penny towards the construction of this major civic facility.
The Government has quite shamelessly turned a blind eye to the NCC developers' plan to create an additional 5.5 million sq ft of offices, apartments, hotels and retail facilities at Spencer Dock on the basis that all of this is required to pay for the conference centre. It has left Dublin Corporation, as the city's planning authority, holding "the shitty end of the stick", in Ray Burke's memorable phrase; forced, in effect, to approve a too-large quantum of development on the 51-acre, CIE-owned site in order to secure this "must have" project.
What the developers are saying is roughly as follows: "So you want a National Conference Centre, but the Government won't pay for it. Well then, you must swallow hard and sanction the plan we've put forward, because that's the only way it can be delivered at no cost to the State." They insist that the centre would run up an annual deficit of £6 million, even though it would be used to hold 300 events per year and would have the capability (acoustics, orchestra pit, etc) to stage major concerts to supplement the revenue from conferences and trade exhibitions.
MEANWHILE, not even Government departments have had sight of the contract between CIE, as freehold owners of the rail freight marshalling yards at Spencer Dock, and the developers, Treasury Holdings Ltd and Harry Crosbie, the docklands entrepreneur. What is clear, however, is that the American-style plan proposed for this publicly-owned site - twice the area of Temple Bar - would turn Dublin in the direction of Pittsburgh. By departing so radically from the scale and grain of the city, it really could be an urban planning disaster. There is no doubt that the developers have invested enormous financial and intellectual resources to advance their project. No fewer than 22 firms of consultants have been employed, often working round-the-clock, with £10 million spent so far - mainly on professional fees. Everyone agrees that the conference centre, designed by Kevin Roche, the Irish-born international architect, would be a fine building. But there can be no rational debate about what should be built on the balance of the site, as long as it is tied to a mega-high-rise scheme.
The Government now needs to break this Gordian knot between the NCC project and the massive bulk of buildings stacked up behind it by agreeing to pay for the conference centre. The sum involved, some £80 million, would hardly be noticed because the Exchequer is so flush. The annual operating losses could be funded by a marginal tax on hotel bedrooms above a certain standard. A levy of £1 per room per night for three-star hotels, £2 for four-star hotels and £3 for five-star hotels would raise £3 million per year, based on 65 per cent occupancy.
The ostensible purpose of providing a conference centre in Dublin was to boost tourism. But the city is now awash with tourists. The number of hotels has increased from 81 in 1993 to 122 this year, while bed capacity has doubled to 19,800 and a further 20 hotels are being built or planned. The most recent hotel to open, the stylish Morrison on Ormond Quay, charges £155 per night for one of its standard rooms. Would any of its guests even notice a levy of £2 or £3 to support the conference centre? Certainly, nobody is put off going to France because of its hotel taxes.
Last year, Dublin Corporation put a surcharge of £1 million on its commercial rates to finance a further 20 "green machines" and the same number of new litter wardens. Again, nobody noticed. Hoteliers, however, reacted with near-hysteria to the corporation's proposal for a flat-rate "tourist tax" of £3 per room per night, applied across the board. Yet it is undeniable that the better-class hotels would be the main beneficiaries of a conference centre.
There would be others, of course - expensive restaurants, boutiques and department stores - and it should be possible to secure a significant contribution from them, perhaps through commercial rates. And if they or the hoteliers were to protest too much, then the conference centre is probably not worth having.