Fruit importers Fyffes achieved huge tax savings when it sold the historic Battle of the Boyne site to the State, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was told yesterday.

The Office of Public Works (OPW) agreed to buy the private company that owned the 450-acre Oldbridge Estate, Co Meath, for €9.4 million, rather than directly acquiring the property, a book-keeping manoeuvre that allowed the McCann family and other shareholders to lower their tax bill significantly, the PAC heard.

The August 2000 deal was completely legal and the only option open to the office, as those were the terms on which the land was being offered, OPW chair Mr Seán Benton told the committee.

The property - purchased on direction of the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands - has lain unused ever since and continues to be registered as a private company, incurring administrative fees of €55,000. The McCanns, together with Mr Tim Collins (a close friend of the Taoiseach), bought Oldbridge in 1997 for €3.4 million. The land includes a separate 70-acre estate site on the southern banks of the Boyne.

Plans to develop Oldbridge as a tourist attraction were put on hold after capital costs were estimated at €40 million.

Although not illegal or improper, the OPW's willingness to purchase the company (Deepriver Ltd), rather than Oldbridge itself, might strike many as "peculiar", said Fine Gael's Mr Michael Noonan, at the hearing yesterday.

It was unclear whether the State would have had to pay extra had it insisted on buying the lands directly but it is arguable that this might have been the case, said Mr Benton. Nor was it immediately known how much the McCann's had saved in the deal, the committee heard.

Deepriver was kept in existence because the OPW felt owning a corporate entity might help it collaborate with the private sector, said Mr Benton.

However, this proved unnecessary and Deepriver, which has been renamed Public Property Development Ltd, is due to be wound up within six months.

A second site, in central Dublin, was purchased under similar terms in 2000 and remains unoccupied. The OPW suspended a redevelopment of the office building, registered as Colmstock Properties, after the Government unveiled its decentralisation scheme and is currently reviewing all holdings in the capital, said Mr Benton.