SERIOUS doubts have been cast over the prospect of providing a national convention centre following a snap decision to abandon a major competition between developers to tender for the £25 million EU funded project.
The 14 development consortia which had submitted tenders received letters from Bord Failte yesterday afternoon informing them that the competition had been cancelled and the matter referred back to the Government.
Last September, at the instigation of the Minister for Tourism and Trade, Mr Kenny, Bord Failte advertised for tenders to provide a "stand alone" convention centre which would not be tied to a casino. Previously, all proposals for a convention centre had a casino clement.
Developers were told to submit their tenders by October 18th, when the various proposals were to be reviewed by a special committee. Then they were all requested to provide further information by December 15th, notably on how they planned to defray the running costs of a convention centre.
This week a short list of three or four schemes was to have been selected and the relevant developers asked to flesh out their proposals still further before a final decision was made. Instead, a decision was made to scrap the competition.
A source close to one of the bidders said they were shocked by the news. "It means that an awful lot of time and money has been lasted, and the clock is still ticking in terms of meeting the EU's deadline of having the centre up and running by the end of 1999."
Among the front runners in the convention centre competition were Treasury Holdings, with the former sports arena site beside the Custom House dock as its location Ogden, whose controversial plans for the Phoenix Park racecourse are under appeal and a consortium involving the RDS in Ballsbridge.
No explanation has been offered for abandoning the competition at this stage. However, it is known that there has been disagreement in the Cabinet over the idea of separating a loss making convention centre from a casino which would provide the revenue to run it at no cost to the State.
It is widely expected that the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, who favours the casino option, will announce his intentions in next week's Budget. The likelihood is that the casino and convention centre will now be "recoupled" with a view to having them built before the year 2000.
