There is no public record of the Taoiseach opposing the racecourse plan right up to 1997, writes Colm Keena, Public Affairs Correspondent
The extent to which the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, supported or opposed the Sonas proposal for a conference centre and casino in the disused Phoenix Park racecourse in the 1990s is not clear from the public record.
The project, which was being fronted by the Manchester businessman, Norman Turner, was predicated on the granting of a casino licence by the government, as otherwise the scheme would not pay for itself.
The effort to build the development began in 1993 but over the period to 1997 there is no record of Mr Ahern opposing it.
The Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition was replaced by the rainbow coalition in December 1994.
Meanwhile, strong and well-organised opposition developed in west Dublin to the Sonas project, in particular to the casino.
The development was approved by An Bord Pleanála in May 1996 but the government held back from granting a casino licence. Harry Shields, of the West Dublin Action Group, received assurances from government leaders that the licence would not be issued.
In June 1996 he expressed his satisfaction and added: "We also met Mary Harney and Bertie Ahern. But we got no support from Mr Ahern on the issue, and I would be worried that, if Fianna Fáil were in power, it may have been a different story."
In the run-up to the 1997 general election, Mr Ahern issued a public statement where he said there "will be no casino, as proposed, at the Phoenix Park racecourse".
He also issued a leaflet that said he had opposed the casino in the Dáil during a debate in April 1997.
However, subsequently no record of any such comment could be found, and a party spokesman admitted that time pressures may have prevented Mr Ahern from getting to that part of his prepared speech, during the Dáil debate.
When the issue of his relationship with Mr Turner arose again in more recent times, Mr Ahern rejected suggestions that he was privately supportive of the casino project.
On December 3rd last he told reporters: "I was broadly in favour of the development, as most people were, because it was providing 2,500 jobs and lots of construction jobs, but I was totally opposed to the gambling end of it, because all through my political career I had opposed one-armed bandits in the 1980s. That is why they weren't in the end able to fund it."
On December 4th Mr Ahern told the Dáil that in June 1997 he had said, on RTÉ's Pat Kenny Show: "There will be no casino, no licence, no amendment to the Act. That is Fianna Fáil policy and that is the way it is."
On that day he also told the Dáil: "Fianna Fáil actively campaigned against the casino during the Dublin West by-election in 1996. The idea for a casino came from Bord Fáilte."
He said he had met representatives of the project but rejected the suggestion that in 1993 he had, as minister for finance, approved the confidential involvement of the National Lottery in the project.
"To be frank, if I had been asked to give approval to that, I am sure that I would have, but I was not asked . . . I did nothing wrong, and even if I had given approval, it would not have been wrong," he said.