An existing 25-metre swimming pool may have to be used for next year's Special Olympics in Dublin if the national aquatic centre is not completed, the Committee of Public Accounts heard yesterday.
Ms Margaret Hayes, secretary-general of the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation, said the games' organising committee had said such a pool, which would be half Olympic-size, might be acceptable for the event.
She was responding to Mr Conor Lenihan (FF) who expressed concern at the comments by the chairman of the 2003 Special Olympics, Mr Denis O'Brien, that the row over the aquatic centre could jeopardise the staging of the event.
Asked whether there would be any cost to the State if the centre was not completed on time, Ms Hayes said her understanding was that there would not. However, she said, there was the issue of image, as Ireland would in effect be reneging on a promise to deliver the project.
She added that she had advised the organising committee in 1998 that it should develop a contingency plan. However, no such plan existed.
Mr Paddy Teahon, who stood down yesterday as chairman and chief executive of Campus and Stadium Ireland Development, said he believed the pool would be delivered on time and within budget.
Later Mr Dermot McCarthy, secretary-general of the Department of the Taoiseach, said it was "not common but, equally, not unusual" for somebody outside Government or the Civil Service to attend a Cabinet meeting, as Mr Teahon had done in December 2000.
Mr Pat Rabbitte TD (Lab) noted Mr Teahon was a businessman and not a civil servant at that stage. Mr Rabbitte added that when he served as a minister he never saw a non-civil servant in the Cabinet room. What had happened, he said, was extremely unusual.
Mr McCarthy replied that it was "by no means common" for such a person to sit in on a Cabinet meeting, but it had happened on a number of occasions since he had begun his term as secretary-general.
He added that it was difficult to speculate what impact the receipt of a report on the dormancy issue would have had on the Cabinet's decision, although the matter would have been relevant.
Mr Bernard Durkan TD (FG) noted that CSID appeared to be providing information to the Cabinet while acting as "judge and jury" on where the contract should go.
Mr John Dennehy TD (FF) said he was concerned that an impression existed that there was some "hokey-pokey" at play. "I like to see people being a bit innovative in trying to get things done for the State," he remarked.
