Casinos opened but law was never changed - Ahern

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has told the Dáil he had often wondered what would have happened if developer Norman Turner had followed the example of others who have opened casinos, even though the law had not changed.

The Manchester businessman had fronted a proposal in the 1990s to develop a casino, conference centre and stadium in the disused Phoenix Park racecourse. The scheme failed amid intense local opposition to the stadium, and in the run-up to the 1997 general election Mr Ahern had issued a public statement in which he said "there will be no casino, as proposed, at the Phoenix Park racecourse".

In the Dáil yesterday the Taoiseach said that the casino was "never a runner" in the form proposed by Mr Turner.

"I often wonder, as a matter of interest, what would have happened if he had done what everyone else did. We all argued at the time that we could not change the law for casinos, but now we seem to have casinos all over the place, even though we never changed the law," he said in reference to the mushrooming of gaming clubs around the State.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny had raised the issue during a discussion on freedom of information requests when he referred to information released by the Department of Finance "which revealed that an acquaintance of his [ Mr Ahern's], a gentleman by the name of Mr Turner, claimed that he received tacit approval from the Taoiseach for the construction of a major project in the Phoenix Park".

Mr Ahern said that "the development planned at the time, minus the casino, probably would have been better than what is currently on the site", but the casino was "never a runner in the form proposed by Mr Turner".

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times