ANALYSIS:The lawyer asked to investigate the Dublin docklands authority and its chairwoman did not see eye-to-eye, writes COLM KEENA

THE POLITICAL debate about the catastrophic management of the economy during the recent past has created two noticeable responses.

There are those who feel that what went wrong must be identified and those responsible named; and there are those who feel the impulse to blame should be resisted and the focus put instead on strategies for improving our situation “going forward”.

It would seem an analogous type of debate has been going on in the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA).

One of the many and difficult issues confronting the authority has to do with a now iconic half-built office block in the North Lotts area of the docklands.

Developer Liam Carroll was behind the block which was to include a new headquarters for Anglo Irish Bank, the providers of funding. The chairman of the bank, Seán FitzPatrick, was on the board of the authority. Lar Bradshaw, the chairman of the authority, was on the board of Anglo.

The authority’s executive entered into an agreement with Carroll on March 31st, 2007, that it would issue fast-track permission for an eight-storey building and later push for changes to the planning scheme for the area so that another eight stories could be built.

So bullish was everyone involved that Carroll built a car park under the eight-storey structure that was big enough for a building twice that size.

Then developer Seán Dunne took a High Court case that led to a ruling that the secret agreement between the planning authority and Carroll gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias. The fast-track permission was withdrawn.

That was in October 2008. The same month the authority commissioned a report from the chairman of Mason Hayes + Curran, Declan Moylan. A draft report was submitted to the authority in December 2008.

The report was only made public last week, on the same day as the two reports into the banking crisis. In a note written in January 2010 to accompany the report in the context of its anticipated release to other parties, Moylan said he had been engaged by the then chairman of the authority, Donal O’Connor, to draft a report “the nature of which was to be a lessons-learnt exercise . . . I was asked not to conduct the exercise or any interviews with a view to apportioning blame or liability on individuals in due course.”

He said he accepted his instructions and told interviewees prior to the beginning of each interview that his work was “not designed to be threatening to any individual” but was rather aimed at producing constructive recommendations for the future activities of the authority.

He verbally presented the report to the board in December 2008. “The report was accepted by the board and I was thanked for my work.” Some amendments were made and a new draft submitted in January 2009.

By that date O’Connor had resigned. O’Connor was a non-executive director of Anglo. When FitzPatrick had to resign as chairman because of a scandal over his hiding the size of his personal debts to the bank, O’Connor was appointed to succeed him by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan.

It was March before the current chairwoman of the authority, Prof Niamh Brennan, was appointed. She read Moylan’s draft report and asked him to do some additional work. As time progressed, however, difficulties emerged, and in September 2009 he resigned from the project. He did not seek fees for any work done since March.

In his note on context Moylan sets out his views on why he could not continue. Brennan wanted him to do work that would “inevitably involve the apportionment of blame” and he felt he could not do this, given how he had begun his various interviews.

Furthermore, he had a difficulty with a key witness being approached in relation to his report. This is a reference to Brennan approaching an authority executive.

“Recommendations had been made as to how he might communicate with me in further interview(s)”, according to the Moylan note.

He also had a difficulty with a document that was given to the board not being given to him.

In time the authority commissioned other corporate governance reports including one that considered the North Lotts agreement. Minister for the Environment John Gormley has extended the remit of the Comptroller Auditor General, John Buckley, so as to include the DDDA, and a report into the Carroll building may yet be produced by him.

Moylan’s draft report included a wide range of recommendations aimed at preventing a repeat of the difficulties the authority had encountered. It also included the terms of reference he had been given by the board. While they asked Moylan to deal with, amongst other matters, the “manner in which the agreement of May 31st, 2007, was concluded”, they also say “liability will not be attributed to any identifiable party”.

According to Brennan, Moylan’s terms of reference were agreed by the board and O’Connor then “mediated them” with Moylan. O’Connor could not be contacted for comment.