Legal talks delay report on dockland operation
'Significant issues' relate to the resignation of former DDDA boss
THE delivery of a report into corporate governance at the Dublin Docklands Development Authority to Environment Minister John Gormley has been delayed pending the outcome of talks with lawyers representing the authority's former chief executive Paul Maloney.
The Sunday Independent has learned that solicitors for Mr Maloney have been involved in discussions with legal representatives of the board of the DDDA in relation to what are being termed "significant legal and contractual issues" arising from his resignation from the authority last July.
Mr Maloney's decision to stand down took many observers by surprise, coming as it did some 11 months prior to the expiration of his five-year contract with the DDDA.
While Mr Maloney himself was unwilling to comment when approached by the Sunday Independent, he subsequently confirmed in a statement agreed with his solicitors that "significant legal and contractual issues had arisen concerning his departure from the DDDA", and that these were now the subject of discussions between the parties.
The outcome of those talks will be keenly awaited given the growing controversy surrounding the authority and its involvement in speculative property investments during the boom years.
Several of the dockland deals over which Mr Maloney presided are expected to feature prominently in the corporate governance report, which is being drawn up by the DDDA's recently-appointed chairman, corporate governance expert Professor Niamh Brennan. Topping the list of ventures coming in for scrutiny is the DDDA's €100m investment in a consortium to redevelop the former Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend.
Purchased for an eye-watering €412m in 2006, the site and the details surrounding its acquisition by the Becbay consortium -- of which the DDDA is a 26 per cent shareholder along with developer Bernard McNamara and financier Derek Quinlan -- are also due to be forensically examined by the Oireachtas Environment Committee in the coming weeks.
Among the Committee's objectives will be to establish why and how the DDDA allowed itself to become so deeply embedded in speculative deals such as the Ringsend site, leaving itself exposed to any downturn in the property market.
Elsewhere, the DDDA is facing problems from its own partners in the Glass Bottle joint venture, with a recent move by developer Bernard McNamara to seek direction from the High Court on the matter of a guarantee given by the authority to cover interest payments on the €270m the Becbay consortium borrowed from Anglo Irish Bank to purchase the Ringsend site.
Also central to the inquiries will be the contents of the DDDA's latest annual accounts, which are currently being finalised following a delay of several months. The accounts are expected to show massive writedowns of the authority's €170m in property assets.
- RONALD QUINLAN
Originally published in
