RDS chief executive Shane Cleary has stated that the Dublin Society will be seeking compensation from World Equestrian Games Ireland following yesterday's dramatic news that the Dublin based company now plans to stage all six disciplines of next year's Nissan sponsored fixture at Punchestown, instead of splitting the Games between the Co Kildare racetrack and the RDS as originally proposed.
"We have a commitment going back three years with WEG Ireland and we expect them to honour it", Cleary said yesterday after a meeting with WEG chief executive John Donlon at which it was revealed that Punchestown would be the sole venue for next year's Games following a breakdown in negotiations with the RDS over terms of agreement for rental of the Dublin showgrounds.
"In 1994 WEG Ireland booked the RDS to hold three disciplines. In return we agreed to forego the Horse Show in 1998 and WEG agreed to compensate the RDS. Now we have no show, none of the WEG disciplines and no dates and we expect financial reimbursement. We've found ourselves in a situation where there is only 15 months to the event and they've withdrawn."
Donlon is adamant however that there was never more than a provisional understanding" that the show jumping, dressage and vaulting disciplines of the Games would be staged in the RDS.
"We can give evidence that there was no formal agreement at any stage", Donlon said last night. There was never a guarantee that the Games would be at the RDS. There was a provisional understanding and we confirmed dates when we wished to have access to the venue. But all of that was subject to the conclusion of a satisfactory agreement between the two parties which, unfortunately, we never arrived at."
Negotiations between the two bodies reached stalemate last month, with both sides citing different reasons for the failure to reach contractual agreement. The RDS had been seeking £300,000 in a series of guaranteed phased payments for the use of the showgrounds for two weeks in August of next year. This figure was partly as compensation to the RDS for loss of income due to the cancellation of the 1998 Dublin Horse Show and partly what Cleary described as greatly reduced rental" for the RDS premises.
WEG Ireland, however, claims that the financial difficulties were resolved two weeks ago and that the sole stumbling block to reaching an agreement was the proposal to build a five star hotel on the RDS site at the corner of the Merrion and Simmonscourt roads.
WEG Ireland claims that the building of the hotel on the RDS premises, with construction work due to start at the beginning of next year, was incompatible with hosting a world championship equestrian event and that the impact of such a development was only made clear to them at the end of February.
Cleary refutes this wholeheartedly however. "WEG Ireland has been fully aware of the extent of the site since September last year", he said. "We're talking about 3.3 acres out of 42 and the hotel is still only a plan at the moment. No planning application has been made. No decision whatever has been made by the RDS about the hotel."
The decision to re site all six disciplines at Punchestown has come about following a succession of internal meetings between WEG Ireland and title sponsors Nissan, who came in with a £2 million rescue package when Government support for the project was withdrawn last year. Following considerable lobbying and the announcement of Nissan's funding, the Government came back on board in the middle of June 1996.
Donlon says that the move to Punchestown is a direct result of the loss of space on the RDS site due to the proposed construction of the hotel. "The decision has been driven entirely by the development planned at the RDS which would affect stabling and the veterinary paddock", he said. "At a meeting two weeks ago the RDS confirmed the hotel was proceeding and our conclusion was that it would not be possible to implement our plans due to the loss of space.
