The Minister for Arts is expected to recommend to the Government within months that it approve a site in Dublin's Docklands for the redevelopment of the Abbey Theatre.
Yesterday in the Dáil, John O'Donoghue said the site at George's Dock - near the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), on the northside of the River Liffey - had been formally offered by its owners, the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.
This follows a five-year saga over the redevelopment of the theatre, where a number of potential sites around the city during that period were examined and rejected for various reasons.
The docklands site has been fully assessed by the Office of Public Works, which has said it meets the needs of a new building for the Abbey, which needs space of 4,200sq m.
"The Office of Public Works engaged in detailed discussions with the DDDA over recent months to clarify issues around the availability of this site," Mr O'Donoghue told the Dáil.
"These consultations have progressed to the point where I am in a position to say that a potentially suitable site at George's Dock, capable of satisfying the accommodation brief for the Abbey, is now on offer subject to clarification of some points of detail with DDDA."
He said his department had been in contact with the Abbey board to seek confirmation of the detail of the accommodation brief in preparation for a submission to Government to request formal approval for the redevelopment project.
Yesterday Fine Gael's spokesman on the arts, Jimmy Deenihan, said it was "most regrettable that the acquisition of a new location for the Abbey has been beset with difficulties so that the decision was not made during the theatre's centenary year which began 18 months ago".
"Several potential sites have been ruled out in what has appeared to be an extraordinarily tortuous process and it is good news that that process may now be over," he said.
The search for a new home for the Abbey has come full circle since five years ago, when another docklands site was dropped after the Taoiseach said he was against the move.
The Abbey board said it favoured moving to a site at Grand Canal docks after Dublin Docklands offered it a free site, along with an annual subsidy of more than €600,000.
Mr Ahern reacted with "surprise" and "disappointment" to the announcement and described it as a U-turn and a serious mistake.
The plan was dropped following his statement and an internal report from then minister for arts, Síle de Valera, which recommended that the theatre remain in the city centre.
That site is now earmarked for a centre for the performing arts.
The current site of the Abbey is in Mr Ahern's constituency, as is the George's Dock site.
Following this a proposal to redevelop the existing site was abandoned after it emerged that a number of additional buildings would have to be purchased at an impractical cost.
A proposal that suggested moving the Abbey to the site of the Carlton cinema on O'Connell Street was also dropped when the site became the subject of a High Court legal dispute.
Last year the Department of Arts examined several locations, including Hawkins House, the current site of the Department of Health headquarters.
It identified the Coláiste Mhuire school on Parnell Square as the favoured option. This was scuppered in January after a deal for the purchase of an adjacent building needed for the redevelopment project collapsed.