THE Government has established a task force to plan the development of an estimated 1,000 acres of Dublin's redundant dockland area, Mr Quinn announced in the Budget.
He stopped short of saying the entire area would be designated for urban renewal tax incentives or whether he intended that it would have its own development authority.
Much of the land is located on the south side of the Liffey, in Mr Quinn's Dublin Southeast constituency. It includes all of Ringsend and Irishtown, extending eastwards to the Poolbeg power station and beyond.
The task force to be chaired by Mr Brendan O'Donoghue, Secretary of the Department of the Environment has been asked to report back in two months on the arrangements which should be made to develop an overall plan
The Minister said the entire area, close to the centre of Dublin, "has great potential for the continued redevelopment and rejuvenation of the city." It required "a planned and coordinated approach."
He said the Custom House Docks Development Authority had made "an impressive and successful contribution," but there was still a large area on both sides of the River Liffey which was redundant and "in Transition"
Mr Quinn noted that a large proportion of the land was owned by State bodies, such as CIE and Bord Gais Eireann. However, as reported last week by The Irish Times, the gas board is planning to sell its holding around the Grand Canal Docks.
It was unclear last night if the Budget move to provide the area with a "master plan" would affect the gas board's intended disposal of more than 25 acres of land much of it contaminated by the toxic residue of gas manufacture.
The task force will include representatives of the Departments of Finance, the Taoiseach, Transport, Energy and Communications, Enterprise and Employment and Marine, as well as Dublin Corporation and the Grand Canal corridor task force.
The Custom House Docks Development Authority is not represented on the task force, though a map issued by the Department of the Environment indicated that its remit may be extended as far as East Wall Road.
Another anomaly is that three portions of the overall area a large parcel of land on East Wall Road and two smaller ones around the Grand Canal Docks were given "enterprise zone" designations in Mr Quinn's first Budget last year.
The area includes large tracts of local authority and private housing. It is also affected by one major infrastructural project, the proposed £120 million, largely tunnelled, four lane access route from Whitehall to Dublin Port.
A spokesman for the Department said the task force would not be preparing a master plan itself, but would be setting down parameters for the preparation of such a plan, "in consultation with interested parties".
Fifteen months ago Ms Joan O'Connor, then president of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, proposed that there should be a master plan for Dublin's redundant dockland area and a development authority to oversee it.
