From Martin Frawley of The Sunday Tribune
Anyone know when this deal was agreed?
This wreaks of similarities to the M50 toll i.e. go in blind and any deal is a good deal for the tax payer 
Stupid shower of gombeens.
But why would the NCC need sewage facilities anyway?? - surely EVERYONE in Ireland knows by now that white elephants never shit!
That looks like a discount rate of just over 8%. It seems reasonable that the discount rate should be set to the inflation rate. If we assume a flat 5% over 25 years, the present value is closer to €450m.
Isn’t there an old outfall pipeline around there, plumb the bastard in willye and start paying de developers their €47m. FF Ard Fheises will then be visible from space as a large brown stain reaching from the Bull Wall to Birkenhead 
Factor in net no inflation (japanese style…)…
edit: it’s the same class act mistake as interest rates, house prices, whatever else - “we’ve only ever known ‘x’ to go up, therefore all we have to do is figure out how much it might go up by and argue over that”.
Jesus, I never knew the terms on this. WTF? Almost €3/4b for a convention centre?? Wat??
Hopefully there will be some inflation. Though you have a good point given we’re front loading the payments for the first 5 years. It would seem reasonable to apply a low discount to the years where we’re paying the most.
It’s not clear who gets the revenues from the convention centre or how they might be shared. This is important as I’m not sure how valuable this asset will be in 25 years time. The building might be a little dated at this point. The state may get something that needs to be demolished and rebuilt.
We can be proud of a building that accomodates 8,000 as long as none of them wants to take a dump? Wait until the IBS society wants to hold a convention there…
I didnt get a chance to ask Biffo any questions, but the Bert and Pat Rabbite were very , very palsy walsy for most of the day. Not sure what to make of that.
Pat Rabbitte seems to be a bit of a social fucking chameleon, I spotted him with Colm McCarthy outside that respected institution of economics, Dohenys & Nesbitts, one summer ago…
Keep your friends close … etc etc
That’s if you consider the construction cost good value, I don’t.
I walk pass this place every morning. About 70-80 metes from this morning down by the liffey there was a massive pressurised pipe or something going into a big tank of some description. The pipe started to spray “shit” everywhere and it went onto the footpath, near the river, so there was still room closer to the road to walk on. There was a worker trying to control it and another across the road you ran over and said “how do we turn this fucking thing off”, which they managed to in a few seconds. Must have been spraying shit for 30 seconds or so
Beautiful metaphor for what was later to transpire-picture of Bertiefuck getting hugged by Johnny Rohan in today’s papers tells you all you need to know about Convention Centre genesis
For the edification of all I present.
https://twentymajor.net/wp-content/photos/orig_bertieandronan.jpg
Bet you’re all thanking me now.
Apologies if I missing the point, but I thought that those kinds of discounted future cash thingys are not primarily about inflation. I mean, clearly the impact of any change in nominal values needs to be taken account of.
But what these calculations are meant to take account of is the time value of money. Assume no inflation. The value of receiving €1 million in a years’ time is less than the value of getting it now, because you are deprived of the opportunity of doing something productive with it now.
That’s not particular to say this conference centre is a good thing. Just that inflation is not what those present value calculation are primarily about.
Just playing with some figures, the raw capacity of the Centre is stated to be 8,000. Multiply by 360 days gives you 2,880,000 potential ‘delegate days’ per year. So if the place was absolutely full every day of the year, and clearly it won’t be, you’d need to collect about €16 per skull to cover the €47 million for the first five years. I notice the coverage says something about the payments covering ‘operation’ of the centre, but I don’t see it explained as to what that means exactly.
I hate those notional “€1500 spend per visitor” type figures, as they are so frequently abused. However, it at least allows us to reverse engineer their figures a bit. They claim it will generate €120 million. Divide that by the notional €1500 and you get 80,000 delegates. That doesn’t seem like a lot, given the capacity of the place. Even if they are all attending week-long conferences, its not even a quarter of the capacity of the centre.
I’m not sure where that leaves us. I suppose hoping that, in Albie Reynolds fashion, they do actually manage to fill the hall.
Easily worth a thousand words.