CIE, the cash-starved national transport company, has a major vested interest in the outcome of the current row over the National Conference Centre because it owns the four-acre site on which it would be built.
More importantly, CIE owns a total of 44 acres in the area - currently occupied by the rail freight marshalling yards at North Wall Quay - including not just the conference centre site but the remaining land (28 acres) where the ancillary development would be located.
CIE, not surprisingly, regards the property as a "cash cow". With adjoining land selling for up to £10 million per acre, it could have made a killing by releasing the 44 acres in tidy parcels to private developers, netting millions of pounds for its nearly-empty coffers.
But there is a catch. If CIE sells any land that is surplus to its operational requirements, the proceeds are recouped not by the company - to fund much-needed investment in the railways, for example - but by the Exchequer. There is nothing in it for CIE.
It is against this background that the company decided to enter into a joint venture with Spencer Dock International (SDI) on the development of the National Conference Centre and ancillary facilities. Under this deal, it retains the freehold title and merely leases the land to SDI.
CIE and its property advisers have estimated that the deal could be worth between £245 million and £350 million over 20 years. The real attraction is that because this would be rental income, as opposed to sale proceeds, CIE itself would keep the money.
No wonder the company was dismayed that much of the site was zoned for an urban square and linear park in the Dublin Docklands Development Authority's master plan. It was on this basis that the authority itself had 28 acres of the holding valued at just £23 million.
It is abundantly clear that one of the authority's principal objectives since last January, a month after the master plan was adopted, has been to get its hands on all or part of CIE's land - either by purchasing it outright or acquiring a share in it through a joint venture deal.
Internal authority documents show that most of the discussions between the authority and CIE have revolved around this issue. However, the fact that CIE had entered into a joint venture arrangement with SDI on the same land has proved a major stumbling block to such a deal.
The docklands authority - and its chairman, Mr Lar Bradshaw, in particular - appear to believe that it is only by acquiring a direct interest in as much of the docklands as possible that it will be able to realise the social objectives of its master plan, such as the provision of affordable housing.
Yet, last September, at a meeting between CIE, SDI, the Dublin Docklands Development Authority and Prof Joyce O'Connor, of the National College of Industrial Relations, it was the authority's representatives who were reluctant to sign an agreement to include a educational institute on CIE's site.
The authority has even used its "Section 25" planning powers as a negotiating chip, at one stage describing these powers as "intangible assets". This led to charges from SDI that the authority was in the business of "selling indulgences" - an allegation which it denies.
However, despite the open warfare between the authority and the developers, CIE remains confident that SDI intends to deliver the conference centre project - and that it will, therefore, see a real return on the valuable piece of real estate it owns at North Wall Quay.
