I want to ask the Taoiseach about the implications of the High Court decision on the national aquatic centre. The Taoiseach will recall the Government made a decision in 2000 to build an aquatic centre in preparation, among other things, for the Special Olympics at an estimated cost of €30 million. However, it came in at €62 million. The trio of directors were the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Deputy O'Donoghue, who——

Three wise men.

——decided to award a 30 year lease in the property worth €62 million to Dublin Waterworld Limited. This turned out to be a shelf company with a share capital of €127 and no assets. When the judge was confronted with this he said that to transfer a lease to a company with a share capital of €127 and no assets was truly astonishing. Dublin Waterworld Limited then secretly transferred the lease to a Fianna Fáil businessman, Pat Mulcair, in what was described in court as a "tax driven deal" that allowed him €2.8 million in capital allowances per annum.

According to the judge Dublin Waterworld Limited only assigned its right to the lease of the aquatic centre to Mr. Mulcair on 30 April 2003 but instead of Mr. Mulcair taking up the lease an elaborate set of agreements were put together to protect Mr. Mulcair's claim for capital allowances. When one looks at the National Sports Campus Development Authority Bill 2006 which is before the House one will find the most extraordinary provision in section 38 which provides that the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism shall have, and be deemed always to have had, power to hold and transfer shares in Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited and the establishment of the company shall be, and be deemed always to have been, as valid and effectual as if they had that power at the time of its establishment.

The only conclusion one can arrive at from that is that there is serious doubt as to the legal capacity of these three members of Government without statutory authority to cause a private company to be formed and to enter contracts relating to the acquisition, holding and transfer of shares. Will the Taoiseach tell the House what is going on? What kind of legislation, six years later, seeks to confer retrospective authority on the Taoiseach to make this kind of deal? How could he and his two fellow directors decide to assign this to a shelf company with a share capital of only €127 and no assets to administer this? The company secretly transferred its right in the lease to a businessman, well known to attend the Fianna Fáil tent at the Galway races, to facilitate him in €2.7 million capital allowances per annum, a lease that was revoked yesterday or taken back as a result of the judgment of the High Court.

Deputy Rabbitte is right on one thing that we did build a first-class aquatic centre for the Special Olympics.

With or without a roof.

Thankfully it is still functioning extremely well. Deputy Rabbitte is incorrect as decisions were made by Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited, not by the three people he mentioned. The third issue is that he had the wrong party for Mr. Pat Mulcair. The Deputy will have to look elsewhere in the House for his allegiance.

And the wrong tent.

There are two tents.

In the High Court yesterday, Mr. Justice Gilligan delivered his judgment in the case of Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited v. Dublin Waterworld Limited. Dublin Waterworld Limited operates the national aquatic centre under a 30 year lease from Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited. Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited took legal proceedings against Dublin Waterworld Limited for forfeiting of the lease and failure to comply with obligations under the lease which include the failure to pay rent, insurance and provide audited accounts. When the proceedings commenced it emerged that Dublin Waterworld Limited had transferred the beneficial ownership of the lease to Mr. Pat Mulcair. Deputy Rabbitte is correct in saying that was done secretly, unknown to Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited. It was transferred by Dublin Waterworld Limited to Mr. Pat Mulcair. Such a transfer of ownership should only have taken place with the agreement of Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited. That was entirely incorrect. Dublin Waterworld Limited sought relief against that forfeiture.

In his judgment, Mr. Justice Gilligan held with Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited on all counts. He found that Dublin Waterworld Limited had wilfully declined to honour its obligations pursuant to the lease of 30 April 2003. Accordingly, he declined to grant relief against the forfeiture and the case will come before Mr. Justice Gilligan again next week for finalising of the order. Therefore, I do not wish to make any comment on that.

The defendants will then have 21 days within which they may lodge an appeal to the Supreme Court. Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited's position is that the national aquatic centre will remain open to the public. Contingency plans to ensure the centre continues to operate as normal have been prepared in the event that the appeal is not taken. Hopefully we can move on. The proceedings had the strong support of the Minister and the entire Government throughout the last difficult period.

Our hope is that the centre will remain open. It will have to find a new way of functioning. My preference is that would be done by Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited. That is an option but perhaps other options may have to be looked at. The national aquatic centre is a world class centre as defined by everybody who has used it in European and international competitions and as declared by those who used in during the Special Olympics. It was built in record time to provide a state-of-the-art facility for a state-of-the-art Special Olympics competition of which we should all be proud.

How can the Taoiseach say with a straight face that we built a first class water centre? In January, the roof blew off.

There was a wind, Pat.

The Taoiseach told the House it was because of the storm. In fact, it was established that it was because of a structural defect. Now it is alleged that the pool is leaking.

It is like the tunnel.

How can the Taoiseach say this project was a first class achievement? As regards the Taoiseach alleging that Mr. Mulcair has a more ecumenical approach to the purchase of influence than the normal businessman the Members opposite assist, that makes little difference to the decision of the High Court. How was it justified to transfer such an important valuable State asset to a private company that had no assets and a share capital of €127?

The Deputy's time has concluded.

How can the Taoiseach boast about the merits of it to the disabled when the fact is that the pool is not equipped to cope with many people with disabilities? Along with many of my colleagues, I had to make representations on behalf of a special needs school in my constituency. This is another case of gross incompetence, tax avoidance and waste of taxpayers' money. Ever since this project was embarked upon it proved to be haunted by bad judgment, bad decision making, bad building and bad decisions as regards the operation and its administration. Tremendous tax advantages have been conferred on a businessman whosever tent he is going into. How can the Taoiseach justify that? The Taoiseach, the Minister for hanging pictures and the Minister for Finance are now seeking retrospective justification in legislation currently before the House that asks the House to treat them as having the powers as if they had them at the time.

The Deputy's time has concluded.

This is a scandal and, once again, nobody on the Government benches puts up their hands and accepts responsibility for it.

Why would they?

Deputy Rabbitte is commenting on the judgment of a case that was brought by the Minister——

It was not brought by the Minister.

It was brought by Campus and Stadium Ireland Limited and supported by the Minister.

Why did the Taoiseach say it was brought by the Minister?

Will the Deputy listen to what I am saying?

The Minister did nothing.

Deputy Rabbitte has had his time.

What the Taoiseach is saying is much more accurate than the accusations Deputy Rabbitte made.

Deputy, allow the Taoiseach continue without interruption.

The case was brought by Campus and Stadium Ireland Limited, supported strongly by the Minister, to rectify the problems that had arisen with Dublin Waterworld, which broke its lease. The Deputy asked why the company broke its lease and get to this position in the first place.

That is the question.

It was because the judgment of Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited was to give it to that company on a tendered basis. It did that.

The three of you would hand in your resignations if you were private directors. If you were private directors you would be removed.

Deputy Rabbitte is always wise after the event. If he had rang Campus and Stadium Ireland that day and told them what he knows now, it would not have made that decision. They did not know then.

The matter was investigated by the Committee of Public Accounts at the time. The Taoiseach's then Attorney General, now the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, found that everything was okay in this particular regard.

Deputy Rabbitte——

Deputy Rabbitte should listen to the truth, not the conspiracy theory.

Minister Dempsey, the Chair is speaking. Deputy Rabbitte had two minutes to submit a question and one minute to submit a supplementary. He used seven minutes in total to submit his questions.

I used half of the time that was allocated to the previous question.

I do not dispute that. You are correct in that. The point I am making is that you were allowed make your contribution without interruption from anybody. You cannot now continue to use the remainder of the time to interrupt the Taoiseach.

It is hard to resist.

The Deputy should try.

Whoever is replying to a question is entitled to the same courtesy as every other Member. I ask that the Taoiseach be afforded that courtesy.

He is only waffling.

The Government Members are now allowed to speak.

The point is that Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited made a decision based on its best judgment. It was dealing with Dublin Waterworld Limited, a company it ran into difficulty with for all the reasons I have already outlined. There is no need to go back over them. It then took legal action to deal with the situation and won its case on all counts. It does not take from the fact that Rohcon built a fine aquatic centre. During a severe storm the roof blew off because of a structural defect and it had to pay for it with no cost to the taxpayer for the work involved in that.

Except the tax relief.

People in this House ranted about leaks because they are against the idea of an aquatic centre. They were against the development at Abbotstown from the very start.

With good reason.

The Deputy is a former Minister for sport.

Let us be honest. They were against everything we did for sport.

Has the Taoiseach forgotten it was the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Tánaiste who were opposed to it?

I remember it well and when he called me Ceaucescu I did not jump up looking for an apology.

Did the Taoiseach recognise him?

In fact, I did not get an apology but that is neither here nor there.

He is not so thin-skinned.

The Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, read Miriam Lord's article this morning.

I do not worry about these matters. I do not have sleepless nights or difficulties. I was taught at a very young age that sticks and stones might break my bones but names will never hurt me. I do not worry about any of these matters. I just get on with the job.

Perhaps the Taoiseach will tell the truth.

I would love to hear Deputy Rabbitte commend the huge progress this Government has made in sport in every way——

The Taoiseach will not live that long.

——whether it is Croke Park, the grounds throughout the country, the money we put into Irish racing, which gave us the good results last week, rather than running around trying to find leaks and little things in legislation against Irish sport.

A little thing like €62 million.

I am very proud of everything I have done and continue to do for sport.