A former minister for energy was not given important information regarding the sale of State land in Co Wicklow when he approved the private sale to Roadstone Dublin for £1.25 million, a senior civil servant has said.
Mr John Loughrey, former secretary general at the Department of Energy, told the Dail Committee of Public Accounts that Mr Robert Molloy was not informed of a written commitment given by a previous minister, Mr Michael Smith, to sell Glen Ding Woods in Blessington by public tender.
Also, Mr Molloy was only made aware of two of the five interested parties, Roadstone Dublin and Johnston Industries.
He knew nothing of earlier approaches made by Hudson Bros, Treacy Enterprises Dundrum and sand and gravel contractor Mr Michael Kavanagh, the committee was told. The Department sold the 147-acre site privately to Roadstone in 1992 as officials believed a lower price would have been secured for the taxpayer had other companies in the trade been alerted to the sale.
Mr Loughrey said he could think of "no reasonable excuse" why Mr Molloy had not received the information but stressed there had been "no conscious withdrawal of any information".
He had made a "judgment call" regarding the private sale to Roadstone and officials believed there could only be a "downside" to a public sale.
Also at the meeting yesterday, Mr Kiaran O'Malley, who advised the Department on the planning issues arising from the Glen Ding sale, said he had recommended a public tender sale.
He had no recollection of the comments he had reportedly made at a meeting with Department officials, but would be "astonished" if he had commented on the likely price the land would have fetched at public tender.
Mr O'Malley confirmed he had carried out work for Roadstone between 1973 and 1990 on a "job by job basis" and had represented the company in a planning application for another site in Blessington in 1995.
The committee chairman, Mr Jim Mitchell (FG), was "not happy" with Mr Loughrey's explanation for why the land had not been offered for public tender or a negotiated private sale involving all interested parties.
The committee would consider the matter in private and there would be further hearings involving other interested parties, said Mr Mitchell.
The Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr John Purcell, welcomed clarifications to particular aspects of the sale process. But he said he had heard nothing that would affect his report's "core conclusion" that the Department handled the sale in "an inappropriate manner". Meanwhile, the Wicklow County Manager, Mr Blaise Treacy, indicated that council management had proposed a rezoning of land in Blessington which would allow for quarrying at Glen Ding. Roadstone was granted planning permission by Wicklow County Council in 1995, but An Bord Pleanala overturned this last year.
Fianna Fail TD for Wicklow Mr Dick Roche, who had asked the committee to investigate the sale, said the Department's defence of the sale on the grounds of planning difficulties was "spurious and unsustainable".
The decision to effectively exclude other interested parties was "offensive in the extreme", said Mr Roche. Hudson Bros, which had first expressed an interest in July 1987, had been treated "appallingly and scandalously". Mr Smith told Hudson Bros, a quarrying company based in Brittas, Co Wicklow, the land was not for sale and could only be sold in the future by public tender.
The firm initiated legal proceedings against the Department last year for failing to allow it to make a bid.
Regarding the land valuation, Mr Roche said the Geological Survey of Ireland report showed there was 23.6 million tonnes of sand and gravel and that if this was sold for £2 per tonne it would be worth more than £40 million. This did not include the residual value of the land or the timber, which was separately valued at £340,000.
After the meeting, Mr Roche said: "There is no doubt in my mind that the Department of Energy was predisposed to sell it to Roadstone and Roadstone only."
Roadstone Dublin has always maintained that it acted entirely properly regarding the purchase and that the late Mr Des Traynor, the then chairman of its parent company CRH, played no role in the acquisition.
Mr Loughrey, now Secretary General in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, said the Department had originally intended to sell Glen Ding by public tender, as advised by planning consultant Mr O'Malley in a letter in April 1990.
But at a meeting on October 18th, 1990 Mr O'Malley had advised officials that planning permission for quarrying would be very difficult to obtain and it was "unlikely" that Roadstone's bid would be bettered.
A "same day contemporaneous note" on the file recorded Mr O'Malley saying he believed only £400,000 would be offered for the site if it was put to tender, although Roadstone might have offered £600,000 because of its proximity to the land.
By alerting other people in the trade the planning issue would have been raised and a lower price would have been achieved, said Mr Loughrey.