A COMPANY which failed to secure the tender to build the €63 million National Aquatic Centre has claimed in the High Court that the winning consortium would have been excluded from the tender process if vital information about it had not been withheld from then taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his government.
The tender process required the inclusion of a firm with an international record of building facilities such as the aquatic centre, not "Bob the builder", said Paul Sreenan SC, for Dublin International Arena Ltd.
Arena has brought proceedings against Campus Stadium Ireland Development Ltd, the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation and the State over the award of the contract to build, design, operate and maintain the centre.
The contract was awarded in 2000 to a consortium of Waterworld UK Ltd, Rohcom Ltd and Dublin Waterworld Ltd, which, Arena alleges, was not qualified to build the aquatic facility.
Mr Sreenan said the guidelines set up as part of the public procurement process were not followed and the tender process was run in a "dysfunctional" fashion.
As part of the process, all qualifications and merits of all who submitted tenders had to be assessed, he said. Campus Stadium Ireland Development Ltd, the State-owned firm which commissioned the centre, had commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers to carry out an investigation into the bidding consortiums, he added.
The report contained important information, including that Waterworld UK was a £4 shelf company, Mr Sreenan said. It also disclosed there was "not a shred of truth" in claims by Waterworld UK of links with international water facility operators. The report's contents should have led to the Waterworld bid being disqualified.
Information in the report was given to Campus Stadium Ireland Development's executive director Paddy Teahon and its head of executive services, but not to the other members of the Campus Stadium committee, he added. The information was never given to members of the deciding committee, the taoiseach or the department of tourism and sport, he added.
On December 19th, 2000, a memo was drafted by Campus Stadium Ireland Development and faxed to the taoiseach's office stating Waterworld UK was the preferred bidder, Mr Sreenan said.
Mr Ahern was unaware that the company he was recommending was a shelf company.
Public procurement bidders could not alter or amend tenders after a certain date but, in this case, a tender was submitted by Dutch entity MDC, with Waterworld UK as operator and a firm of architects to design, but with no builder. Waterworld UK Ltd was substituted for MDC in an amended tender which included Rohcom as the proposed builder, Mr Sreenan added. This change was "against the rules".
The hearing continues before Mr Justice Declan Budd.
