Fine Gael environment spokesman Phil Hogan TD has accused the Minister for the Environment John Gormley of a “political cover-up” in relation to matters at the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.
He was speaking at a press conference where he released copies of three confidential reports prepared for the authority.
Mr Gormley this evening described the claims as “false, ridiculous and completely without foundation.”
“The fact is the reports were commissioned to bring openness and transparency and to shed light on what happened in the Docklands and that is what they do. It says what happened; it doesn't say why it happened.”
He said Mr Hogan was “muckraking for political gain rather than dealing with the facts in hand”.
Mr Hogan said the reports did not deal with the failure of the board of the authority over the past decade.
He claimed Mr Gormley did not want to investigate these matters because Taoiseach Brien Cowen had approved an increase in borrowing by the authority in 2006 so it could make its disastrous investment in the Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend, Dublin.
Mr Hogan said the deal could end up costing the Exchequer more than €500 million. The site cost more than €400 million and was now worth “zero” he said.
Interest on loans and the costs of cleaning up the site, would now fall on the taxpayer as the other parties involved in the purchase, Bernard McNamara and Declan Quinlan, have seen their wealth collapse.
He said none of the three reports dealt with what the current chairman of the authority, Prof Niamh Brennan, has described as the “systemic conflicts of interest” on the DDDA board.
Lar Bradshaw and Sean Fitzpatrick were on both the board of the authority and that of Anglo Irish Bank at the time funds for the purchase of the Ringsend site were borrowed from Anglo.
Mr Hogan said guarantees on the costs arising from the site given by the authority had been renewed by the Minister for the Environment in 2009. He claimed Mr Gormley did not want to investigate what had happened in the authority, as this would cause political embarrassment to his coalition colleagues.
The reports deal with matters to do with finance, planning and the board’s reaction to these matters. Mr Hogan said the planning report raises questions over the status of planning permission for some of the most well known buildings in the docklands area, and not just the half built and at one time intended new headquarters for Anglo.
The DDDA today refused to comment on the documents.
Mr Gormley said last month he would publish the DDDA document after he receives advice from Attorney General Paul Gallagher on its legal implications.
A spokesman for the Department of the Environment refused to comment on RTÉ's report. However, he told The Irish Times Mr Gormley hopes to publish the DDDA review as soon as possible but is still waiting on advice from the Attorney General.