Hell hath no fury like a Kerryman scorned. Especially when that Kerryman is the former senior civil servant, Paddy Teahon, and the issue at stake is his beloved Campus Ireland.
The man who has already staked his reputation on the project coming in at its projected cost strode into the Public Accounts Committee yesterday to defend the awarding of the contract to run the national aquatic centre to a dormant shelf company.
Clearly, Mr Teahon believed that not only was his reputation at stake, as chairman and chief executive of Campus and Stadium Ireland Development (CSID), but the reputation of his fellow Kerrymen, and particularly the three "principals" who will benefit from the contract to Waterworld UK.
He said it was not fair to imply that because the three were from Tralee it made them "less good". That wasn't to say Mr Teahon was personally familiar with the Tralee Three. He stressed he did not know any of them prior to them becoming involved in the project. And as a result, he strenuously rejected the suggestion "that I was involved in a conspiracy of some sort to divert public money to people on no basis other than that they were from Kerry".
For all his pleadings, however, committee members couldn't help but think there was something malodorous about the aquatic centre.
The chairman. Michael Finucane (FG), said the public "do feel there is a smell off this project at this stage." Referring to claims by one of the successful consortium companies to have had experience in water-based rides, Mr Finucane said it appeared "Waterworld UK took you for a water-based ride on this occasion".
Mr Teahon was not without his friends on the committee, however, chief among them Conor Lenihan (FF) who claimed a CSID-commissioned report on the shelf-company, which raised "no alarm bells", had put the "the dormancy issue to bed". Mr Teahon was less emphatic on the matter, saying he did not wish to minimise the importance of the issue.
He had, after all, just expressed his regret and embarrassment at not having told the Department of the Taoiseach, the board of CSID and the contract assessment panel that Waterworld UK had been found to be dormant. It was a misjudgment, he said, but not a resigning matter.
Mr Teahon was unhappy with Labour's Pat Rabbitte, who earlier this week suggested the contract was "always intended for the three principals in the Kerry equation". Mr Rabbitte said he was not impugning anything against Mr Teahon but had posed the question "in the interrogative". Mr Rabbitte could not have done otherwise in the absence of the Attorney General's report into the matter.
That report is due to be circulated this afternoon. Once it has sight of it, the committee will be seeking Mr Teahon again.
