The balance sheet for the Custom House Docks Development Company Ltd (CHDDCL) for the year to March 31st, 1999, shows the company had no projects in progress as of that date.

This contrasts with the £13.5 million figure given for the same category of asset in 1998, and heralds the completion of the company's involvement with the hugely successful, and often controversial, development of phase one of the Custom House docks.

After sales of almost £50 million (€63 million) in the year to March 1999, resulting in profits after tax of £10.7 million, the company charged with the phase one development has, six or seven years beyond schedule, all but brought that phase to an end.

It still has to develop the "stack A" warehouse on the site but that project is being held up by the Government's inability to say "yes" or "no" to a proposal put to it by financier Mr Dermot Desmond more than three years ago.

After taking part in a competitive competition with seven other consortia in 1987, CHDDCL entered into an agreement with the Custom House Docks Development Authority - now called the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) - for the implementation of a five-year "Master Project" for the development of a 27 acre site in the docks, for commercial, retail and residential use.

As part of the deal between the two parties the profits from the development of the site were to be divided between the two parties to the deal. The authority provides the land and the company develops and then sells properties on the land, raising the finance to do so through its own resources.

Notes to the CHDDCL's 1999 financial accounts state: "The cumulative amount paid to the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (formerly known as Custom House Docks Development Authority) in respect of development surplus at March 31st, 1999, amounted to £34,996,607."

Since April 1993 when a revised agreement for the development of the site was signed by the authority and CHDDDL, profits from the project have been split 50-50. A more complicated arrangement, but one which had a similar outcome, is understood to have existed under the terms of the original agreement and so the profits accumulated by the members of the consortium which came together under the roof of CHDDCL, are roughly equal to those accumulated by the authority, i.e £34.9 million.

The three original parties to the CHDDCL consortium were Hardwicke Ltd, McInerney Ltd, and British Land, with Hardwicke's owner and managing director, Mr Mark Kavanagh (55), being the driving force. McInerney Ltd pulled out of the project in 1991, leaving Hardwicke and the UK property company, British Land.

The CHDDCL directors' report, filed with the 1999 financial statements, states that Mr Kavanagh "has an interest through bodies corporate in 333,333 `A' ordinary shares of £1 each and 4.5 `D' ordinary shares of £1 each representing 50 per cent of the issued share capital of the company at March 31st 1999".

Mr Kavanagh's company, Hardwicke, has also been in receipt of management and administration fees from CHDDCL over the years. These fees, which are documented in the financial statements, vary between £100,000 and more than £400,000. The total is well in excess of £1 million.

The directors of CHDDCL are: Mr Paul Byrne (64), a colleague of Mr Kavanagh's on the Hardwicke board; Mr Kavanagh; Mr Cyril Metliss (77), a senior London-based executive with British Land; and Mr Stephan Kalman (61), another London-based director associated with British Land.

The contest for the 1989 contract was a hard fought one, though Mr Kavanagh complained later that profits were not always assured. He also said the 5 year target within which the site was to have been developed was never feasible. "We said we would do it in five so we'd get the contract but it was never a realistic objective."

Some years after the project began, work all but ground to a halt, with the property market hit by recession and the after-effects of the Gulf War. The company had spent more than £100 million but was having difficulty getting tenants. The decision of AIB to buy a building on the site may have been a watershed.

However, the company was criticised for a view it then took not to begin construction of any building before it had secured promises from prospective tenants for at least half of the proposed office space. Around the time of the signing of a revised agreement between the two parties in April 1993, tensions reportedly became quite intense and it was muted that the company could lose the remainder of the contract unless it met upcoming deadlines.

It was also reported at the time that the then incoming Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, was unhappy about the mix of buildings which had been built on the site, and specifically the greater than planned amount of office space and the less than envisaged amount of cultural and social infrastructure. The original plan for phase one was a development of "style, flair and imagination" which would be "an unfolding pageant of events, places, shops and eating areas". It would be "lively by day, luminous by night". There was to be a sculpture park, a yacht marina, a canoe club, an open-air market, a riverside park, a museum, a fountain plaza, a bandstand pavillion, a winter garden and a heliport, as well as restaurants, bars, cinemas and nightclubs.

Little of this transpired. However, Mr Kavanagh has since said that, given conditions in the early 1990s, it was not possible to do other than concentrate on commercial developments.

Mr Desmond played a crucial role in convincing Mr Charles Haughey to back the idea of a financial services centre for the site in 1987. When Mr Haughey was returned to power that year, he quickly got the project up and running. Mr Desmond, as a reward for his input, got an option over one of the blocks built in the site, and he still has penthouse offices there facing the Liffey.

In recent weeks it emerged that CHDDA gave £100,000 to Fianna Fail in 1989, with Mr Kavanagh handing over the money to Mr Haughey personally in Mr Haughey's home on the morning of the General Election that year. Mr Kavanagh presented one cheque for £25,000, made out to Fianna Fail, and three drafts, for £25,000 each, made out to cash. A large proportion of the money was subsequently used by Mr Haughey. Mr Kavanagh appeared before the Moriarty Tribunal two weeks ago. He said he consulted his fellow board members before making the payment but could not remember who it was who requested him to make the payment in the form in which it was made. Earlier evidence revealed that this was the first time the company had contributed to Fianna Fail.

Mr Kavanagh said he never received a receipt for the 1989 contribution and when he subsequently complained about this, in 1996, he received an apology from Mr Ahern, who was then leader of the Opposition. Having received the apology, Mr Kavanagh made another contribution to Fianna Fail. He handed Mr Ahern a cheque, inside an envelope, for £50,000.