Bord Failte's rejection of the report by the original 15strong team of technical assessors raises questions over the handling of the project despite Minister for Tourism, Dr McDaid's expressed confidence in the management board.

The independent Bord Failte management board chaired by Mr Malachy Stephens, a Mullingar-based accountant, who had been appointed by Mr Enda Kenny, the former Minister for Tourism declined to accept the assessors' report and, instead, came up with a list of caveats, some of which are well-grounded, while others appear harder to understand.

For example, it said the Spencer Dock consortium's "anticipation of tax designation" conflicted with the requirement in Bord Failte's brief that "all proposals must be within the constraints of current legislation and specifically should not request or anticipate legislation (sic) changes which are outside the scope of this process."

However, the legislation under which tax designation may be granted already exists in Section 55 of the 1997 Finance Act. This lays down an essentially administrative procedure whereby designation may be granted by the Minister for Finance, in consultation with the Minister for the Environment, on the DDDA's recommendation.

If there was no basis for believing that the Spencer Dock consortium would receive designation, the board's view might have been justified. But it seems less tenable, given the reliance of the Docklands master plan on attracting "anchor projects" and a DDDA commitment by letter to Treasury Holdings to facilitate the scheme, if it won.

Another caveat noted that the qualifying period for expenditure under any tax designation expires on June 30th, 2000 in other words, before the building would be completed. The board was also sceptical about the project's reliance on a bank loan for a period in excess of 20 years, despite AIB's stated willingness to provide the facility required.

The management board also seems to have been confused about a proposal that a levy of £1 per square foot would be applied to all development on the CIE-owned site. Apparently, it believed that this would cost CIE £60 million a year whereas, in fact, it would be levied on new buildings, rather than on the freehold owner of the land.

CIE's involvement in the proposed joint venture with Treasury Holdings is potentially of enormous benefit to the cash-starved State transport group, because it would retain freehold title to the entire 40-acre site at Spencer Dock, currently used as a rail freight marshalling yard, while the land was developed for higher value activities.

Estimates have put the longterm benefit to CIE as high as £200 million, given that the master plan devised by Kevin Roche for the extended site would provide a pair of 250-bedroom hotels, as well as 1.3 million sq ft of offices, 1 million sq ft of apartments and 140,000 sq ft of retail and leisure facilities.

But some elements in the DDDA are unhappy with the scale of this development proposal, and not just because it would encroach on an urban park, which is one of the objectives of its own master plan; it would also put an end to the prospect that the CIE-owned site might be acquired by the DDDA at a knockdown price.

It is believed that the authority offered CIE about £30 million for the 40-acre property, valuing it at less than £1 million per acre. Yet the DDDA itself has been selling land on the adjoining 12-acre site, west of Spencer Dock, for up to £10 million an acre.

??????E stuck to its guns and held out for the proposed joint venture.

One of the Bord Failte management board's complaints was that details of this extended development scheme were not submitted for evaluation, as required by the competition brief, issued last October.

What worried the board was that Treasury Holdings was putting virtually no equity into the project and that it could "fall on its face" as a result. E are in the deal, it doesn't stand up. Otherwise, who will subsidise the losses?"

While only Mr Stephens, as the management board's chairman, and Mr Jim McGuigan, of Bord Failte, who headed the team of technical assessors, had gone though each of the tenders in detail, it is understood that the board decided by five votes to one (Mr McGuigan) not to accept the recommendation in favour of Spencer Dock.

Mr Stephens directed the team of technical assessors to evaluate the Anna Livia project, but curiously not the OPW's scheme which had also been ruled out. However, the assessors awarded it far fewer points than Spencer Dock.

Faced with this, Mr Stephens recommended that the board could either make no award or enter into what is known in EU parlance as a "negotiated procedure" in which all tenderers are given a new opportunity to present and clarify their projects. In effect, it means re-opening the whole contest to a new round of assessment.

The board decided to do so, though there were serious question marks over its legal capacity to act in this way. Also, the procedure can only be invoked in extremis where, for example, none of the tenders are "fit for purpose." Since this was not the case, lawyers advised that any award made under these circumstances would be open to a challenge.

The board also decided to dispense with the original 14 assessors and appoint a new team.

It was at this point that the Spencer Dock consortium sought a High Court judicial review of the management board's decision to re-open the competition by moving to the "negotiated procedure". Treasury Holdings headed by Richard Barrett and John Ronan insists that the management board queries about the Spencer Dock tender could all have been answered by seeking further clarification. However, the board's view was that this would be unfair because it would be "tantamount to allowing some tenderers to amend their projects".

Meanwhile, alarm bells were ringing at Bord Failte over the issue of whether Mr Stephens and his board had the power to invoke the "negotiated procedure". Last week, Bord Failte held an emergency board meeting at which the decision of the management board to move to the "negotiated procedure" was formally revoked. Instead, Bord Failte itself as the contracting authority for the NCC decided to invoke the procedure itself, deeming that none of the tenders were "fit for purpose". From the very outset of this competition, it looked likely that one or more of the also-rans as well as one contender (Torontobased Moytura Developments) which didn't even submit an entry would seek a judicial review of any decision to award the contract.

What wasn't anticipated at all was that the most likely winner would resort to the courts. However, having been assured that the matter was being taken in hand by Bord Failte, the Spencer Dock group agreed to drop its legal action last Tuesday.

With time running out, a frustrated Harry Crosbie expressed serious concern that Dublin would end up losing "the finest public building that could be given to the city in this generation", designed by our leading expatriate architect.