The Government is to invite offers from developers to construct a 2,000-seat national conference centre in Dublin, guaranteeing the State will lease it in return for the private sector funding its building.
The tendering process is likely to begin within six months after the Cabinet yesterday approved a proposal from the Minister for Tourism and Sport, Mr O'Donoghue, to go ahead with the long-awaited project. Several attempts to have such a facility built in the past have been high-profile failures.
However, the Government hopes the guaranteed leasing arrangement will attract the private sector to the project. A group of senior officials from the Departments of Tourism and Finance, Fáilte Ireland, the national tourism development authority, and the Office of Public Works is now to be appointed to drive the project.
Fáilte Ireland is to update a specification for the National Conference Centre which is to form the basis for an open procurement process to be carried out by the Office of Public Works.
The OPW is expected to invite proposals to build a 2,000-seater facility with additional exhibition space and catering facilities.
If successful, the decision to rely entirely on private funding for construction, rather than proceed by way of a Public-Private Partnership, will allow the achievement of one of the Government's key tourism targets set out in the Programme for Government, while not putting further pressure on the public finances.
There are expected to be no incentives such as land or tax breaks offered, apart from the commitment by the State to lease the building. This means that that the cost of the project would not affect the General Government Balance - the tool used by the EU to measure Ireland's adherence to EU budgetary regulations.
This is crucial to the Government's calculations as it is already considering borrowing to pay for other infrastructure projects. Such borrowing will push Ireland closer to the budget deficit limits set by the EU, so it was vital for Mr O'Donoghue to propose a way of building the centre that did not add to this pressure. While the construction and operation of a national conference centre would inevitably be a loss-maker, Government sources believe the broader economic benefit of such a centre in tourism revenue would be €25 to €50 million per annum. It is estimated that 120,000 visitors come to Ireland for conferences and meetings every year.
Dublin is seen as the only viable location for such a centre, and while the OPW will specify that it should be in or near the city centre, Mr O'Donoghue and his department are believed to have been convinced that an inner-city location is the most desirable.
While the State would lease the conference centre, it could not be ascertained last night who would operate it. One source said this issue may not be decided yet.
The Government hopes the procurement process could begin within six months. The successful tender would then have to go through a planning process and possible site purchase, whose length is unpredictable.
The construction of the centre would be expected to take around two years. No decision has been taken as to the site, although the Custom House Docks area will feature strongly.
The most recent attempt to build a national conference centre - at Dublin's Spencer Dock - was abandoned in 2000 after An Bord Pleanála gave planning permission only for a 2,500-seat centre, rejecting other elements of the high-rise development including two hotels, nine office blocks and 11 apartment blocks on the 51-acre site.
Governments have considered such a centre since 1990, with some €33 million in EU money earmarked for such a development in 1994.
In 1995 the then minister for tourism, Mr Enda Kenny, ran a tendering process but abandoned it, saying none of the entries met the criteria. He opened discussions with the RDS about locating such a centre in Ballsbridge, but these came to nothing.