Government ministers were said to be "running around like headless chickens" last week wondering whether the National Conference Centre will ever come home to roost, now that the latest competition to procure it - the third in 10 years - has turned yet another fiasco in the making.Crisis meetings were being held almost daily to see if there was any way of salvaging this landmark project. With less than four weeks to go until the June 25th mid term review of projects earmarked for aid from the EU Structural Funds, some of the participants were running for cover.The prospects improved somewhat on Tuesday, when a legal action by one of the competitors, a consortium headed by property developer, Treasury Holdings, was struck out. Now all five competitors have been told that they must negotiate with a new team of assessors, who are to report back to Bord Failte "as a matter of extreme urgency".Eight days ago, the Minister for Tourism, Dr McDaid, declared that attaining a National Conference Centre (NCC) was a "primary political objective" for his department. He expressed "every confidence" in the way it was being handled by Bord Failte's Management Board for Product Development.But confidential documents seen by The Irish Times raise questions over the handling of the project. What they show is that the management board rejected a recommendation by the original 15 strong team of technical assessors that the contract should be awarded to the Spencer Dock consortium, headed by Treasury Holdings.This technical team, which included experts on architecture, planning, marketing, law, finance, tax designation and the mechanics of running a conference centre, spent two months examining three of the five tenders in detail. The other two tenders, from the Office of Public Works and the Anna Livia group, fell at the first fence.The assessors judged that both were not "fit for purpose" because they did not show title to, or a contract to purchase, the sites on which they were bidding - in the OPW case, two parcels of land at Infirmary Road, vested in the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Defence and, in the Anna Livia case, the Grand Canal Docks site.The 20 acre Grand Canal site, contaminated by decades of manufacturing town gas, was still in the ownership of Bord Gais Eireann when tenders for the NCC contract closed on January 31st; it had spurned all approaches from rival bidders for the contract because it felt obliged to deal with the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.All semi-state companies with property in Docklands were told by the Minister for Public Enterprise, Mrs O'Rourke, last November that they should enter into arrangements with the DDDA to dispose of any lands which were surplus to their requirements - unless they had their own developments schemes in mind.The BGE site around the Grand Canal Docks was in the process of being transferred to the DDDA for a knock-down price of £12 million - to take account of decontamination costs - when the NCC tender deadline passed. Thus, the Anna Livia consortium, headed by Sean Dunne, neither owned it nor had a contract nor option to purchase.Since Bord Failte's brief for the NCC specified that each group had to supply "confirmation of ownership or evidence of site acquisition rights/options", the technical assessors ruled out both Anna Livia and the OPW - the latter because there was no indication that the relevant Ministers had agreed to dispose of the Infirmary Road site.The technical team then proceeded to assess the tenders submitted by the Spencer Dock consortium, the Royal Dublin Society and the Sonas Centre scheme for the Phoenix Park Racecourse site. Of these, by far the highest number of points - 82.5 out of a potential 100 - were awarded on merit to the Spencer Dock group's tender.Through the assessors had reservations about aspects of the proposal, they noted that "satisfactory evidence of acquisition rights" had been provided by the consortium, which also includes Harry Crosbie, of the Point Depot. CIE is making the four acre site available has agreed a joint venture to develop the remaining 36 acres.The assessors' report, seen by The Irish Times, described the design by Kevin Roche - the renowned Irish born, US based corporate architect - as dramatic and said it should result in "a landmark building of high architectural merit" which would lift the development potential of land in the area, including CIE's extensive holding.Dealing with the financial aspects of the £79 million scheme, the assessors noted that AIB had expressed a "strong interest" in providing £55 million in funding - the balance left after an EU grant of £24 million - while GE Capital has indicated it wants to invest in the project.They also noted that the proposal was a "tax based lending scheme which assumes that the area will receive tax designation" under the provisions of legislation apply to Docklands. "This assumption is valid", they said, adding that the value of tax incentives was likely to be in the region of £15 million - a substantial boost to the project.Their reservations related to such matters as marketing, where they believed that the demand projections were unrealistic and the costs excessive, though they said this could be resolved. They also felt that the proposed 26 month construction phase was "ambitious and probably unrealistic".These were not "make or break" issues, and the assessors still placed the Spencer Dock scheme well ahead of its rivals. Given that it had scored so highly, with the RDS and Sonas Centre consigned to the role of "also-rans", one might have expected that it would have been approved by the Management Board for Product Development.