The North’s Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, today challenged an ex-sports minister to produce evidence that senior civil servants are blocking plans for a new multi-sport stadium at the former Maze paramilitary prison site.
Mr McGuinness said he was aware of the allegations made by Democratic Unionist Edwin Poots and would be very interested in seeing the evidence.
Mr Poots has called for the Civil Service to be relieved of responsibility for delivering the arena for soccer, rugby and Gaelic games at the site, claiming that top Northern Ireland officials were working against it by inflating cost estimates.
He described a recent assertion from the chief accounting officer in his old department that the bill for the stadium development and associated centre for conflict resolution could reach £719 million over 30 years as “cloud cuckoo talk”.
But Mr McGuinness said Mr Poots now needed to back up his claims. “If there are allegations to be made then that’s essentially a matter for those people who want to make the allegations,” he told the Assembly.
“I obviously would be interested if people want to come along and furnish me with facts and figures and details. I would be very interested in hearing what they have to say but that hasn’t happened thus far.
“All I’ve heard is what I’ve heard in the media.”
PA