The cost of relocating the State laboratories at Abbotstown, Co Dublin, to facilitate Sports Campus Ireland is now estimated at £193 million, with only "minimal allowance" for inflation over a three-year construction period.
The latest estimate is more than double the figure of £90 million given to the Dail in March last year by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy. And neither sum included the costs of new equipment or of replacing the State farm at Abbotstown.
It is known that the Government, on the Taoiseach's initiative, decided to proceed with the Sports Campus Ireland project on the basis of a memorandum that did not mention the cost of relocating the laboratories on the 500-acre site.
Two weeks later, on February 8th, 2000, the Government decided that the Department of Agriculture laboratories and the State Laboratory were to be relocated to Backweston Farm, near Celbridge, Co Kildare, a 360-acre holding already in State ownership.
No further development was to be carried out at Abbotstown, which meant halting construction work on a £3 million extension to the State Laboratory, while the Marine Institute's laboratory, also on the site, was earmarked for Galway.
Coincidentally, Backweston is in the constituency represented by Mr McCreevy, whose Department had - and still has - serious concerns about the potential exposure of the Exchequer to the sports campus project.
After he announced that Abbotstown was to be evacuated, without any advance notice to the 352 staff in its laboratories, 259 of them signed a petition deploring the lack of consultation on what they saw as an "unnecessary and wasteful" move.
According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Dr Maire Walsh, the State Chemist, warned that if the relocation resulted in a loss of staff with expertise it would have implications for public health and the clean image of Irish food.
State Laboratory staff said they were "extremely upset . . . stunned and devastated" by the proposed move, while the Department of the Marine was warned that any loss of its specialist staff could cause the Marine Institute to "implode on itself".
JUST three days after the Government's decision, however, the Office of Public Works was directed to "immediately" prepare plans for new laboratory facilities at Backweston and to find a site in Galway for the Marine Institute laboratory.
The facilities to be transferred to Backweston include the central meat control, veterinary, pesticides and seed-testing laboratories as well as the State Laboratory and the dairy science laboratory, which is now in Harcourt Terrace.
But while Backweston at least has the advantage of being within the Dublin commuter belt, the Department of the Marine said a relocation package was "imperative" to entice as many as possible of the Marine Institute's staff to Galway.
Last July the institute's board opted to relocate to Bord Iascaigh Mhara's decommissioned Decca mast site near Oranmore, occupying an elevated position overlooking Galway Bay; it was expected the 14-acre site could be bought for £150,000.
The Minister for the Marine, Mr Fahey (whose constituency is Galway West) wrote repeatedly to Mr McCreevy pressing for an acceptable relocation package, warning that the project was in danger "unless we can make some gesture to deliver a critical mass of staff who are prepared to move". If this was not done, it would cause "very significant damage" to the institute. "I simply cannot let this happen", he said, adding that it would seriously jeopardise his mandate to expand the sustainable development of the fisheries and marine food sector.
But Mr McCreevy backed the line taken by his officials and told Mr Fahey last November that any concession in this case would create an unacceptable precedent in the context of the Government's plans regarding decentralisation of some 10,000 public servants.
Mr Fahey then took the matter up with the Taoiseach, warning him: "If we continue as at present, without the prospect of carrying the staff with us, we will damage irreparably the morale and business of the institute and incur very considerable avoidable costs".
By that stage the cost of relocating the institute's laboratory from Abbotstown to Oranmore was put at £36 million, including £1 million for the BIM site. Just nine months earlier the initial estimate for this part of the sports campus fall-out was £10 to £12.5 million.
