HARRY Crosbie, one of the owners of the Point Depot, told the High Court yesterday his haulage business and workforce were disrupted and he lost millions of pounds following the sale of a Dublin dockland site in 1990.
He objected to the Custom House Dock Development Authority "taking the land". He had at the time a perfectly good scheme for a joint development with Trinity College Dublin of the six-acre site as a science and technology park. It would have provided 800 jobs in the inner city.
Mr Crosbie is seeking the return of the site for which he received £3.85 million following the abandonment of the Government-backed scheme for an indoor national sports centre.
His action is against the Dock Authority and the State. The hearing was adjourned to Tuesday.
The authority denies Mr Crosbie entered into an agreement because there was a compulsory purchase order or that the order gave him no option but to sell.
The State denies that powers of compulsory purchase conferred, on the docks authority were an unjust attack on Mr Crosbie's property rights.
Mr Crosbie told the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Costello, that in 1987 he had talks with Trinity College about setting up the science park and gave the college an option on site. A feasibility study had been positive and there was no problem with funds for the venture.
Following the opening of the financial services centre in 1988, Mr Crosbie said, he was approached by Mr Jim Gahan, the Dock Authority's property development officer, who said the Government wanted to buy Mr Crosbie's lands to build a national sports centre.
Mr Crosbie said he let it be known he did not want to sell. Mr Gahan said the "die was cast" and the authority could compulsorily acquire the site. He offered £500,000 at the time. All the correspondence and conversations were about a sports centre and nothing else.
Cross-examined by Mr John Quirke SC for the Dock Authority, Mr Crosbie denied that in December 1988 he had indicated a possible interest in selling his site. He had told Mr Gahan he did not want to sell because only a madman would sell following the success of the financial services centre and the Point Depot projects.
Mr Crosbie said that to "an extent" he opposed the sports centre project because it would be in competition with the Point Depot. But there was also the loss of the Trinity College project, and the fact that access into Dublin port was bad and the two venues could not exist side-by-side.
He did not say he would sell if the price was right.