Carroll: under pressure

Troubled developer Liam Carroll has been told that he will have to provide special sewage discharge facilities if plans for a €100m office block in Dublin's docklands are to go ahead. Dublin City Council has told the developer that "there are capacity issues in relation to the existing sewage network pending the completion of the North Lotts sewage network". Until the new network is completed, he will have to find a way for the sewage to be delivered to the Spencer Dock Pumping Station.

He has also been told to suggest "more active publicly accessible uses on the ground floor" of the proposed seven-floor office block which would be constructed at the junction of Upper Mayor Street and Castleforbes Street. The site lies behind the planned Anglo Irish Bank headquarters which have lain idle as a skeleton structure during legal and planning battles. Carroll wants to build nearly 32,000sq m of offices there and had been hoping to attract the back end operations of a bank to the proposed building. The council has told Carroll he will have to submit additional information on the application. Carroll's second petition to have the Zoe Group of companies placed into examinership will be heard on Tuesday. ACC Bank is trying to have the group wound up.

The Zoe Group meanwhile appears to have paid off the Revenue Commissioners. A barrister appearing in court on behalf of the Revenue in relation to the examinership said recently that Vantive Holdings had made a payment of more than €750,000 but a stop was put on it when the examinership process was taken. The payment was received afterwards and the Revenue's barrister said that if it cleared there wouldn't be an issue between it and Carroll's companies. The Revenue has not been present in court since then but said last week that it cannot comment on individual cases.