The Attorney General is to carry out an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the awarding of a contract for running the planned National Aquatic Centre. The Taoiseach confirmed today that Michael McDowell is to look into the matter. The contract was awarded to a dormant company.
Mr McDowell is to prepare a report for the next Cabinet meeting on Wednesday week. Speaking on This Week on Radio One, Bertie Ahern said that he only became aware last week that a dormant company was involved in the project, even though his department had responsibility for the matter at the time.
He said that the Government had no difficulty with the Board of Stadium Campus Ireland but there were outstanding legal and contractual issues as well as matters of corporate governance.
Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan said in a statement today: "The Taoiseach has been personally and totally linked with the Campus Stadium Ireland project. He was the originator of the project and had hoped that on completion it would be his political monument.
"As the project now displays all the attributes of another Fianna Fáil fiasco - a dormant shelf company, links to the Virgin Islands, massive budgetary overruns - the Taoiseach is turning his back on a responsibility that is principally his."
Mr Noonan said that the inquiry to be undertaken by the Attorney General was a stalling tactic to ensure that the Taoiseach avoided answering questions in the Dáil before the Easter recess. He said that all the facts are either available to Mr Ahern or can be readily established.
The Labour Party leader called on the Taoiseach to publish all documents relating to the aquatic centre. In a statement, Ruairí Quinn also asked what action the Government intended to take over its claim that it was kept in the dark about the awarding of the contract to run the centre to a London-based shelf company.
He said that Mr Ahern shared responsibility for the actions of the people running the project since they were, as he put it, "hand picked by the Taoiseach".
The former Fine Gael Sports Minister, Bernard Allen, has said that revelations about the aquatic centre have raised questions about the Taoiseach's competence and judgement in handling the Stadium Ireland project.
