The company which abandoned the €9 million Eyre Square redevelopment project in Galway this week has blamed Galway City Council for failing to honour its contractual obligations.
Samuel Kingston Construction Ltd (SKCL) said in a statement last night that it regretted the "interruption" , but said it was the "unavoidable consequence" of a series of events concerning the contract between the parties.
The construction company quit the site in the early hours of Monday morning and told the local authority that it would not be in a position to proceed. The council said there were no payments due, and the company had been given over €3 million of a contract price of €6.5 million.
SKCL said that if the scale of extraneous difficulties had been kept within tolerable limits, it would have brought the project to a successful conclusion.
"The allegation that the due completion date was November 2005 is misleading," it said. "There were earlier delays . . . not caused by SKCL, and. . . [ they] resulted in interim extension of time awards to February 2006."
It said it had proposed over 20 weeks ago to accelerate the work on site. "This was accepted by the engineer and implemented by SKCL, but associated entitlements were not being treated as they should have been under the contract, contrary to the statements made by city officials. . . that SKCL had been paid all monies to date in full."
Last night, the local authority disputed the company's claim that time extensions had changed the completion date to February 2006. It said both parties had agreed to expedite the works to meet the November deadline, but claimed SKCL did not follow the agreed plan.