In 2006 as I was walking along Dorset Street, I noted that O’Neils Public Bar or the Snug as it was more commonly known on the corner of Eccles Street and Dorset Street was being gutted and renovated, I had to inquire what was going on, who in their right mind would invest millions in this long forgotten and decaying corner of the north side. I stepped inside to find six Polish labourers ripping up floors and pulling down walls, on the counter lay a boron that was signed by the IRA men who had murdered Garda Mc Cabe, one of the Polish lads had just found the boron behind the old counter but had no idea what it was. The Snug had been a rough north side drinking house that was about to be transformed in to a modern Bohemian Café Bar by one of the north sides most prolific yet little known property developers. This property developer pulls no punches when it comes to his support of Fianna Fail and particularly his old and dear friend Berty Ahern. This developer lives only a short distance from Berty and they know each other as well as tea.
Eventually, I got to speak with the developer, who was renovating the Snug, and I simply asked him why he was investing so much in what was effectively a derelict site in a derelict street. The developer explained to me that there was going to be a new state of the art Hospital built on the site of the Mater and Temple Street hospital sites, he explained that this cradle to the grave hospital would have thousands of new staff, many of whom would require accommodation, food and drink. He told me that Dorset Street was about to be transformed both by public and private funding. I then explained to the said developer that I was aware that Minister for Health, Mary Harney, was expressing the view that the new hospital should be built on a green field site. The developer immediately dismissed such talk and said that Berty would be making the decision not Harney. I then explained that Mary Harney was being advised by international experts in terms of best medical practice and so forth. Again my suggestion that Harney would decide where the hospital would be built was dismissed with cautious laughter.
The developer then pointed to the many other sites that he was developing in the proximity of the proposed state of the art hospital. I was bemused that a developer could invest millions around a project that had not yet been given the green light in terms of location; it seemed to me that this was more than mere speculation. The developer then made a slip by letting me know that he was a non-executive Director of Temple Street Children’s Hospital and that he regularly used his building company to carry out work for Senior Consultants, HSE and Department of Health staff. He told me that senior members of Fianna Fail regularly stayed in his Hotel in Scotland, which has an 18 hole golf course and full fitness/leisure suite, one can only conclude that the latter was not extensively used by our bloated Ministers.
The developer made it very clear that he was in no doubt that the new hospital would be built exactly where he had been told it would be built. The developer while talking to me, made a call to a Government Minister, just to prove to me that he knew what he was talking about, the Minister took his call immediately and the location of the hospital was discussed and the developer ended the phone call confident that the new hospital would be built a few feet from where we were standing. The said developer has since 2006 built town houses, apartments and hotel rooms close to the site of the new hospital and almost all of his new accommodation is filled by contract to those now working on or training within the new hospital campus, which is under construction.
Unlike many of his fellow developers, this particular developer has not felt the nip of the economic downturn; to the contrary, he has just purchased another Hotel in Ballina, County Mayo and is in the process of developing a number of other properties. This developer is not on his own, other Fianna Fail Bagmen also invested heavily in Dorset Street and the surrounding area and all are enjoying the benefits of filling their accommodation with nurses, student doctors, visiting consultants and the varied professionals and tradesmen now working on the construction of the new hospital. Nothing has changed in Ireland, nepotism and corruption are part and parcel of the shadowy links between big business and oily handed Fianna Fail politicians, yet we will have to wait for a decade or more before Tribunals are established to spend ten years investigating the activities of those who put profit before people, who build hospitals on certain sites to fill the coffers of local property speculators rather than produce best International practice in Health Care.
By theirishobserver.blogspot.com
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