The Dublin Chamber of Commerce yesterday urged the Government to take emergency action to ensure that Dublin gets a conference centre. It claimed the city was missing potential revenues of £30 million per year.
Mr Declan Martin, the chamber's policy director, said the planning board's decision to reject the overall Spencer Dock development proposal put the conference centre part of it in serious doubt.
He claimed it was well known that conference centres lost money and needed subsidies.
Mr Martin said the process was a "shambles" requiring emergency action to get a conference centre at Spencer Dock or elsewhere.
Last year 92,000 conference visitors came to the Republic, but many more would come if Dublin had a purpose-built national conference centre, according to Ms Deirdre Mulligan, of Bord Failte's convention bureau.
"We do believe we have been at a disadvantage in recent years because we don't have a purpose-built conference facility," Ms Mulligan said. "We're probably the only country in the European Union without a purpose-built facility which can handle 3,000 people."
Dublin has hosted some major conferences in recent years, including the World Organisation of Family Doctors in June 1998 and an international conference on radiology in 1999. These were held in the RDS and UCD and were able to accommodate 3,000 delegates. But such large conferences are few and far between.
"It's not a question of the numbers we are able to accommodate," said Ms Mulligan. "It's a question of getting a centre which can offer all the conference facilities."
Securing a purpose-built centre was the most important issue for conference organisers, who did not want to have to build seating areas and arrange caterers, according to Ms Mulligan. This was why some organisers just would not consider Dublin for the bigger conferences.
The importance of conferences to the Irish tourism market could not be understated, according to Mr Frank Magee, chief executive of Dublin Tourism.
"Conference delegates are high spenders who often bring their family and spouse with them and take a holiday after the event," he said.
Bord Failte figures show 80 per cent of international delegates attend conferences in Dublin but many move on to other parts of Ireland after they are finished.
However, Mr Magee echoes the concerns felt within the tourism and conference centre industry. "If we are serious about attracting conferences, we need to have a dedicated conference centre", he said.
"The proposed national stadium has to be looked at as a possible convention centre or the Docklands Development Authority itself could go ahead. If not, we are back to where we were 10 years ago."