Property developer Bernard McNamara has said he did not pull out of the five Dublin public-private regeneration projects he had been involved in.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio's Marian Finucane programme, Mr McNamara said that during a meeting with Dublin City Council ten days ago he was told that the projects were not progressing and that the council wanted to go a different route.
Mr McNamara said that during the meeting his company was also accused of not being as co-operative as it should be.
The developer added that there was no serious engagement with him on at least one of the five regeneration projects.
He described the Public-Private Partnership process as ‘frustrating’ because it did not allow planning permission to be applied for until contracts were signed.
He said if permission had been applied for at the start of the project he would not have been ‘caught in size guidelines’ which he said added 25% to the build space.
He said Dublin City Council has spent €27m on the projects to date and implied that his company had spent even more than that.
He said there are ways such projects can be carried out successfully but that they need to be ‘simplified extremely’.
Mr McNamara also said that he may have been ‘naïve’ in allowing the council to persuade him to co-operate with it in changing away from the PPP project.
