New firm may take on Cork school contract

The Department of Education will need to see a schedule of construction for the €60 million Cork School of Music from the preferred…

The Department of Education will need to see a schedule of construction for the €60 million Cork School of Music from the preferred bidder by the end of the year - or it may be forced to look at alternatives, a leading Department official has cautioned. Barry Roche, Southern Correspondent, reports.

The head of the Department's public-private partnership unit, Mr David Gordon, said the Department was committed to the project and was anxious it would begin as soon as possible. However, he said, it would not be renegotiating the contract with preferred bidder Jarvis Ltd.

"We would need to see a roadmap and a time schedule for the project by the end of the year at the latest or we would have to start looking at alternatives - possibly looking at progressing it through another public-private partnership or through traditional procurement," he said.

Mr Gordon was commenting after it emerged that Jarvis had ended negotiations to sell on the Cork contract to French construction company, Vinci, and had instead reached provisional agreement to sell the contract to a German company, Hochtief.

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Jarvis had entered negotiations to sell off four of its public-private deals, including the Cork School of Music, to Vinci last month. But Vinci had withdrawn from the deal when the educational authority in Norfolk in the UK withdrew its contract for new schools from Jarvis.

Jarvis's three remaining contracts to build and manage the Cork School of Music, as well as schools in Manchester and Northern Ireland, are believed to be worth over £400 million (€570.5 million) over the next 25 to 30 years. Jarvis has now offered to sell them to Hochtief.

Mr Gordon said the Department would meet Jarvis and Hochtief executives later this week and would point out to them that there could be no changes to the price or terms of service agreed with Jarvis when it was appointed preferred bidder in 2001.

"It's up to Jarvis and Hochtief to reach an agreement and then come to us with their proposal for the takeover of the Cork School of Music contract, and we will then have to take legal advice to ensure that that proposal doesn't breach EU procurement rules," he said.

The managing director of Jarvis Projects Ltd, Mr Pat Gardiner, yesterday expressed confidence that Jarvis and Hochtief would reach agreement within a few weeks and sign a contract before the end of the month to take over the Cork school along with the Manchester and Northern Ireland projects.

He said Vinci had been unhappy about the loss of the Norfolk contract but Hochtief was more flexible in its approach and was anxious to get into public-private partnerships in Ireland, both North and South.