Developer Mr Jim Mansfield's partially-built conference centre at Citywest in Saggart, Co Dublin, should not have been blocked by An Bord Pleanála, Mr Jimmy Deenihan TD (Kerry North) has declared.
The planning authority, which ruled against the development on the grounds that Citywest is too remote and badly served by public transportation, should not be able to stop projects on economic grounds, he argued.
"If somebody wants to build a hotel in any part of the country, they should be able to do so. If somebody has the money to build something they should be allowed to build, provided they comply with planning," he went on.
An Bord Pleanála ruled that a national conference centre should not be built on Dublin's outskirts, but rather in the city centre where it would boost tourist trade.
However, Mr Deenihan disagreed: "What has been achieved at Citywest already has been phenomenal. They have built a fabulous golf course here, apparently. People are going to stay around here.
"They can park their cars. There is a friendly atmosphere. If you had this conference in the city centre the people attending it would get dispersed. You would not get the same sense of community.
"Let me be clear, I was never approached to support this proposal. I have no vested interest in it, but I have said from the very beginning that it was an interesting proposal," he declared.
The centre, which Mr Deenihan incorrectly believed would house 14,000 people, rather than 6,500, would help to attract major international conventions "such as those run by the IBMs of this world", he said.
"That would be a major boon for Dublin. There are no other proposals to build a conference centre of this magnitude. It would obviously be near the technology park here.
"It would be a state-of-the-art facility. I think it is very frustrating that it has been refused," Mr Deenihan later told The Irish Times following his public declaration of support for Citywest at the ardfheis.
