White Elephants

ToBeFrank123

Its something we are very good at in this country.

Someone comes up with a great idea, goes headlong into building it, only to find out half way through it wasn't needed in the first place, or else was badly planned and not costed properly.

The two most obvious examples lately were the National Children's Hospital and the redevelopment of Pairc Ui Chaoimh.

There may be some need for a children's hospital but not at a cost of 2 billion euro. Better to stick with what we have and invest in what we have than starting a new hospital from scratch. The rest of the health service will suffer badly as a result of cost cutting to fund it.

Pairc Ui Chaoimh is the latest in a long line of redevelopments of GAA stadiums that will be filled to capacity at most once or twice a year. Munster in particular now has several 30k or 40k+ capacity stadiums each of which is filled once or twice a year. The rest of the time games are played on front of mostly empty stadiums. One large stadium would be enough in Munster and aim to fill it 9 or 10 times a year with all major games there.

Taxpayers and GAA money is so badly spent in this country.

Any other examples?

Mr. Incognito

They should commission a report

Oh Wait.

Maybe they should read the last report.

https://constructionprocurement.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/Report-on-the-Review-of-the-Performance-of-the-Public-Works-Contract.pdf

valoren

Cork Airport.

I think it cost well over €100 million to build the new terminal back in the day.
It's amazing because it is primarily a big expansive space of glass, steel and concrete.

Ulysses Gaze

E-voting machines.

mikemac2

Small fry compared to most examples

600k spent on the Stewards Lodge in Phoenix Park in 2007.

It was going to be the official residence of the Taoiseach despite Bertie Ahern saying he didn’t want it and indeed he never used it

Cowan used it a handful of times and Enda Kenny never used it all. Vardakar also never used it and sure why would he as he has his own home in Dublin 15

It’s still there, in top shape but never used.

Dakotabigone

Escorts

Junkyard Tom

Elephants are great - leave elephants alone.

Harry Palmr

PPARS is my favourite massive waste of money on something that'll never be used.

orourkeda1977

I tried to ride a white elephant last night

TheValeyard

The Spire

Dakotabigone

orourkeda1977 wrote: »

I tried to ride a white elephant last night

Forgot to take viagra?

Ulysses Gaze

€43 million spent on planning and consultation for the Ahern Bowl that was scrapped.

Aherns greatest regret was not that his party ****ed up the economy but that he never built a ****ing soccer stadium.

dxhound2005

We are learning from our masters. Berlin Airport.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/top-lufthansa-boss-says-new-berlin-airport-will-probably-never-open-1.3432911

mada82

They were a great pill back in the day

Apple iPods.




runs off before the TIRADE of abuse from Irish Apple fanbois and fangirls

Muckka

Lots of dopes handing out €4,000 to cowboys during the Celtic tiger for a day's work, for 10 shrubs @4:50 a piece and maybe 10 bag's of bark mulch @ 8:00 each...

So that's €125 for materials

There's a huge profit margin there.

I don't know who's worse the people doing the work or the people paying for it.

It looks great to the untrained eye, but fck me as a professional gardener I could have done it at a lot less and more creative.

Fool's and their money are easily parted....

Jimbob1977

Qatari stadiums after the 2022 World Cup

There's a brand new airport in Spain (possibly Valencia) that has never been used. Nature is beginning to reclaim it.

Chime in the slime

Floozie in the Jacuzzi

Cash for Ash in Northern Ireland. The rebate/grant exceeded the cost of the fuel... so companies burnt fuel for the sake of it.

Tabnabs

Bord na gCon, the Irish Greyhound Board got a valuation of €12m for their greyhound stadium in Harolds Cross.

However, poor Bord na gCon had run up debts of over €20m and this was why they were selling off the stadium, to offset against their debts.

In comes the the Department of Education and buys the whole thing for €12m €23m and Bord na gCon gets to clear all their debts in one foul swoop. Nice...

corner of hells

Muckka wrote: »

Lots of dopes handing out €4,000 to cowboys during the Celtic tiger for a day's work, for 10 shrubs @4:50 a piece and maybe 10 bag's of bark mulch @ 8:00 each...

So that's €125 for materials

There's a huge profit margin there.

I don't know who's worse the people doing the work or the people paying for it.

It looks great to the untrained eye, but fck me as a professional gardener I could have done it at a lot less and more creative.

Fool's and their money are easily parted....

My sister in law paid a genius 250 Euro's to convert her plain windows to Georgian style windows.
He arrived with a ladder and a couple of rolls of white insulating tape and neatly divided her windows into little squares.

It took him an hour.

rossie1977

Probably most famous skyscraper in the world was considered a white elephant for decades after it's construction.

Empire State building opened in 1931 but for years was only 23% occupied and lost about $1 million a year annually. It didn't start breaking even until the 1950s.

topper75

The track record is poor.

We had a few hits too though among all the misses. The IFSC and associated regen of Dublin's docklands was a great success. The motorway network was also a good investment.

ToBeFrank123

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

Qatari stadiums after the 2022 World Cup

There's a brand new airport in Spain (possibly Valencia) that has never been used. Nature is beginning to reclaim it.

Chime in the slime

Floozie in the Jacuzzi

Cash for Ash in Northern Ireland. The rebate/grant exceeded the cost of the fuel... so companies burnt fuel for the sake of it.

Agree about White Elephants after World Cups and Olympics. Plenty of examples of that. If I remember correctly Bertie wanted to use his stadium as part of a plan to get the Olympics here. I could be wrong in that though.

joe40

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

Qatari stadiums after the 2022 World Cup

There's a brand new airport in Spain (possibly Valencia) that has never been used. Nature is beginning to reclaim it.

Chime in the slime

Floozie in the Jacuzzi

Cash for Ash in Northern Ireland. The rebate/grant exceeded the cost of the fuel... so companies burnt fuel for the sake of it.

Less a white elephant, more like a brilliant wee money making scam for the people involved.

ToBeFrank123

The link between large public projects with little or no obvious need (and eventually run wildly over budget because of improper due diligence) and corruption seems clear, the more I read this thread.

White Elephants seem to be a good way for the corrupt to funnel public money to their friends in private industry.

BattleCorp

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

€43 million spent on planning and consultation for the Ahern Bowl that was scapped.

Aherns greatest regret was not that his party ****ed up the economy but that he never built a ****ing soccer stadium.

I have to ask the question, €43m for planning and consultation???? Was land purchased or any facilities included in that €43m???? Hard to believe that it was €43m for pieces of paper.

Ulysses Gaze

BattleCorp wrote: »

I have to ask the question, €43m for planning and consultation???? Was land purchased or any facilities included in that €43m???? Hard to believe that it was €43m for pieces of paper.

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/department-faces-grilling-on-43m-bertie-bowl-spend-26820640.html

Potential-Monke

Children in general. Are they not white elephants? 'a possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of'

Not difficult to dispose of per say, just frowned upon.

Muckka

Consultant's.

BattleCorp

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/department-faces-grilling-on-43m-bertie-bowl-spend-26820640.html

Bethefcuk. That's mad Ted, mad I tell ya.

ToBeFrank123

The new prison to replace Mountjoy which was going to be built in Meath. Something like 30 million for the land.

Plenty examples around the country of the government of the day buying land at peak prices. They could have got it far cheaper before or after the peak if they were patient. More examples of political and senior civil servants incompetence.

Irish Bottle Site. One of the most extreme examples of waste of taxpayers money.

The list goes on and on.

ToBeFrank123

The Meath prison fiasco sounds very similar to the new Children's hospital.

Given the delays with Thornton, refurbishment began at Mountjoy in 2010. Up to the end of 2014, €28.7m had been spent on capital works, with an additional cost of €600,000 this year to complete it. Each cell in Mountjoy is single occupancy and every one has in-cell sanitation.
The C&AG said: “The estimated cost of the larger [Thornton] development was €525m — around 3.5 times the cost indicated when the original purchase of the Thornton site was approved.
“That decision was underpinned by inadequate analysis of the likely costs of developing a new prison, which appear to have been significantly understated, and the costs of addressing the problems at the Mountjoy complex, which appear to have been overstated.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/cag-report-super-prison-site-bought-for-50m-now-worth-only-2m-356567.html

JupiterKid

Lots of White Elephants in this country, the unbuilt Bertie Bowl being a prime example, but I would not count the new terminal at Cork Airport amongst them.

If and when Cork city and its region achieve its full economic potential, the airport will come to be seen as a prudent front loading of transportation infrastructure.