The tribunal chamber in Dublin Castle is about to become respectable.
We hardly recognised the old place yesterday, now that the hard necks have been replaced by hard hats.
Soon, a better class of hot air will fill this famous space, where lawyers got rich, the public got angry and teeth were for lying through.
The former workplace of Feargus Flood and Alan Mahon has undergone a €3 million revamp. The barn-like tribunal chamber – as renowned for its leaks as for its draughts – is now a modern conference facility.
It will be the main centre of activity during our EU presidency in the first half of next year.
“It took six months to get the work done and it came in on time and under budget,” declared Brian Hayes, Minister of State at the OPW, as he showed people around.
The cost of this bureaucratic beano is expected to be 40 per cent lower than it was for our last stint in 2004.
Money no object, so. But standards will not slip during the Austerity Presidency.
“There will be free Audis,” said Brian.
Or “Vorsprung durch Sponsorship,” as they might say in Germany.
The Government has done a deal: we get the loan of a gleaming fleet of top-of-the-range cars to ferry the VIPs to and from the airport and Audi get shots on the news of their vehicles sweeping in and out of Dublin Castle.
Although this arrangement is not costing the taxpayer a penny, it might have been more prudent to buy a fleet of hobbledy asses and bockety carts, all the better to drive home the message to our friends in Europe that we haven’t a bean.
Meanwhile, the Revenue Commissioners have been displaced from the ground floor of the Printworks complex and a swanky light-filled foyer now leads into the main conference hall, which is equipped with a huge screen at the far end.
Should the OPW want an art installation there, they could run a loop of Mahon tribunal documents, such as pages from the Bailey Brothers’ “pussy book” – their little notebook with a photo of a kitten on the cover which contained vital accounting information; or the receipts for the lavish refit of Bertie’s house when it was still owned by “The Whiparound Man Who Didn’t Eat the Dinner”.
A piece of modern sculpture by Michael Warren is to feature outside. If he hasn’t done it already, might we suggest a homage to the brick-sized wad of money given to Ray Burke and the mythical receipt he never issued in return?
There’s a ready-made inscription: “Will we get a receipt? Will we f***!”
The witness box is gone, of course.
And the rattling roof windows have been replaced with a sound-absorbing ceiling.
The walls are clothed in soft, grey curtains from Foxford in Mayo. “To improve reverberation time,” explained architect Sean Moylan.
Visiting ministers from the member states will sit around a modular table on blue chairs (no armrests, not very comfortable). If Michael Noonan takes a cushion to the finance ministers’ meeting and holds his ground, we could have a deal on the promissory note earlier than expected.
Hayes was very impressed with the hall.
“If we ever have Mahon the Musical, I think this would be the perfect venue.”
