A major bid to get the European Anti-Money Laundering Agency to locate it headquarters in Dublin included a potential offer to make new rental apartments available to the agency's staff, according to documents seen by RTÉ News.
Had the agency located its base here, it could have seen up to 400 employees working at the Coopers Cross campus on Mayor Street Upper in Dublin city centre.
The campus identified by the Office of Public Works (OPW), which was described as one of the smartest places in the world to work, included 471 newly constructed residential units.
Documents detailing Ireland's bid reveal that the developer of the Coopers Cross campus was willing to provide the agency with "a right of first refusal" on new rental apartments at the campus.
The document states that the same developer could provide additional accommodation at Grange, Sandyford and Cornerstone if it was required.
It added that "these other developments are all in south Dublin and all within easy reach of Coopers Cross".
The offer to give the agency first refusal on rental apartments has been strongly criticised by Sinn Féin.
The party's Finance Spokesperson Pearse Doherty said this will come as a shock to nurses, carers and teachers who would hope to rent these properties.
However, the Department of Finance has insisted that the State was never in negotiation with a developer for either commercial or residential property and it simply identified what was available when making its bid for the agency headquaters.
"The selection of the commercial properties was based on advice from the OPW based on the requirements of the (European) Commission, as set out in the application, and that did not include the need for any residential property solutions, it was merely a feature that we included based on the nature of the Coopers Cross development," a spokesperson said.
They added that were the bid to have been successful the decision around the selection of a property for the headquarters would have been a matter for the agency itself.
