Proposals for a £21 million visitor centre at the Giant's Causeway have not been dropped in favour of any private sector option, Enterprise Minister Nigel Dodds has insisted.
Responding to lengthy questioning from the Assembly's Public Accounts Committee at Stormont yesterday, Mr Dodds contradicted the views of chairman Mark Durkan that the Minister had apparently abandoned established plans for a publicly-funded centre at the world heritage site on the north Antrim coast.
Mr Durkan argued that the Minister had changed his position over the past week. "I think both your statement, your contributions in debate, the contributions of other Ministers both in debates and in other places have very much presented this as being a wasteful public sector project, dropped and abandoned," he said.
But Mr Dodds denied this, claiming his statement was "a sensible, straightforward decision that follows inexorably and inevitably" from a decision by his DUP colleague Arlene Foster, the Minister in charge of planning. A fellow party member, developer Seymour Sweeney, has offered to finance a private sector development on lands adjacent to the causeway which Ms Foster is "minded" to accept in preference to the public sector initiative on which more than £1 million has been spent. However, Hilary McGrady, director of the National Trust in Northern Ireland, said: "It would not comply at this point in any shape or form with the recommendations laid down by Unesco." Mr Dodds is expected to be questioned further by the committee.