Relocating State facilities previously at Abbotstown forms the largest element of the money already spent on the controversial "Bertie Bowl" development, writes Frank McNally.
The Government has spent or committed over €400 million in the context of Sports Campus Ireland, for which the only concrete benefit to date is the National Aquatic Centre.
Of the €63.9 million already allocated to the campus development company, CSID, some €55 million has been for the aquatic centre at Abbotstown, the site originally intended to house a complex including an 80,000-seat national stadium.
The 50-metre swimming pool and associated facilities are now almost complete, and the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism says the centre will be ready on time and on budget for the 2003 Special Olympics next June.
The largest cost directly associated with the campus project to date is the estimated €238 million for relocating the State Laboratory and other Department of Agriculture facilities formerly based at Abbotstown. This figure was given in answers to Dáil questions last year by the minister of State for agriculture and food, who put the cost of transferring the laboratories to Backweston Farm in Co Kildare at £157 million, with the relocation of the Marine Institute to Galway costing a further £31 million.
The bill included compensation paid to a developer after a planned extension to the existing laboratories was abandoned.
Contracts for the Kildare facility were signed earlier this year, at a time when the Stadium Ireland plans were in doubt. But the then junior minister, Mr Cullen, defended the expenditure on the grounds that the old laboratories had been inadequate to meet modern demands, and their shortcomings would be eliminated by the move to a new site.
Other costs associated with the campus project were for the initial feasibility study and the 2001 review by independent consultants: a total of about €800,000.
The controversial contract for executive services to CSID is included in the €63.9 million already allocated. Magahy and Company initially negotiated fees amounting to 1.8 per cent of the overall cost of the sports campus.
This was revised downwards, first to €127,000 a month and more recently to €57,000 a month.
More loosely related costs of the campus project were those contained in an agreement with the Football Association of Ireland in March 2001 and in a grant to the GAA a month later.
The FAI deal, aimed at scuppering the association's plans for a 45,000-seat stadium in West Dublin, was a complex one, and included allocations which the association would have expected to receive anyway.
However, it was described by the FAI's then chief executive as "stunning," and although some of its potential benefits - such as the right to sell 10-year tickets for international games - may now not accrue, the extra State funds promised are estimated to be worth €72 million between now and 2014. Even more controversial was the announcement of a €60 million grant to the GAA towards the redevelopment of Croke Park. The latest and biggest in a series of Government allocations for the project, it was announced on the eve of the GAA's national congress in April. The congress was considering the reform of Rule 42, which precludes the playing of soccer or rugby at Croke Park.
Such a move might have undermined the case for the stadium at Abbotstown. But with Croke Park's financial future secured by the grant, delegates voted narrowly to retain the ban on other other sports.