Council told to stop paying Poolbeg contract after €20m budget overrun

DUBLIN City Council has been told to scrap a contract for consultancy services linked to its plans for a massive incinerator project at Poolbeg.

The contract for ‘client services and public relations’ was initially supposed to have cost €8.3million.

But it has overrun by more than €20million and, acting on a number of complaints about it, the European Commission has now described the contract as ‘an illegal situation’.

According to RTÉ, it did so in a letter sent to the council in April, which the national broadcaster reported yesterday that it had seen.

The EU’s call for the termination of the contract – which is not legally binding on Dublin City Council – was initiated off the back of a letter written on behalf of two Dublin residents.

In it, Sandymount-based Joe McCarthy and Valerie Jennings raised a variety of concerns – many of which were dismissed by the EU.

But in their letter to Dublin City Council, the EU’s internal market and services directorate expressed concern that some aspects of the consultancy services contract did not appear to ‘conform with EU law’.

And in the letter, the EU mentioned that it had raised this and other issues with the council. It even went so far as to describe the contract as ‘an illegal situation’, although it does not specify exactly how or why it came to this conclusion.

According to RTÉ, it also mentions in its letter that the council ‘did not address all the concerns of the Commission services’. And added: ‘Therefore, the Commission services called upon the Irish authorities to terminate the contract.’

Last night Dublin City Council was unavailable for comment on the issue.

According to Fine Gael councillor Paddy McCartan, the contract was still in force as recently as July.

He told RTÉ he was told by city manager Owen Keegan that the council was ‘in a contractual position for client services’ with the consultancy firms involved.