The Department of Education and Science is refusing to fund current proposals by the National College of Ireland for a £31 million campus in the Dublin docklands.
The NCI recently sold its property in Ranelagh for £12.5 million and planned to open a state-of-the-art college for 8,000 full-time and part-time students in 2001. But Department officials have challenged virtually all the figures for the project, including costings and student numbers and recommended that the project should not be officially sanctioned.
A spokesman for the Department of Education and Science said yesterday he saw no basis for disagreeing with the assessment of officials, before adding: "We are not going to fund the project as it stands."
The chairman of NCI's governing body, Dr E. Patrick Galvin, said there was no foundation whatsoever for the Department's concerns and the governing body was urgently seeking a meeting to clarify the issues.
Dr Galvin insisted that at no time had the Department formally told the college it would not contribute to the funding of the docklands campus. Sources within the Department of Education rejected this assertion and insisted, in turn, that the president of NCI, Prof Joyce O'Connor, had been advised of the Department's concerns and of its intentions at a number of meetings. The level of detailed planning that had been undertaken for the college was very low, Department sources said, for what would be the third-largest third-level building project in the State. The costings were "well over twice the level of similar developments elsewhere".
In his public statement, Dr Galvin accepted the need for a review of the project - which was initially announced last May - and said any shortfalls in funding would not have to be met by the Department. The original project-estimates of £14 million and £20 million had not included fitting-out and equipment costs, he explained. The projected cost increase to £31 million was due to site abnormalities, increased construction fees and an increased provision for inflation. The Docklands Authority had donated a 1.3 acre site; pledges of £1.3 million had been received and four banks had made funding offers of £10 million on the understanding that Government funding of £7 million was forthcoming, he said. The college had no intention of closing or winding down its operations.