The government has vowed to disprove accusations by the organisers of the Web Summit, who claimed a lack of official co-operation forced them to move the event from Dublin to Lisbon.
The coalition said it would publish documents that would show that state agencies did offer the kind of support that the event had asked for.
On Thursday, Paddy Cosgrave, the co-founder of the leading technology conference, published his email correspondence with officials in the Department of the Taoiseach.They span the period from August 21 to October 15 this year.
The messages show Mr Cosgrave’s increasing annoyance over a perceived lack of response from the government to a number of issues he raises, including traffic management, public transport, hotel prices, and wi-fi. He announced the move to Lisbon publicly on September 23.
Failte Ireland have estimated that the event was worth an estimated €37.5 million to the city.
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Yesterday, Paschal Donohoe, the transport minister, said that further releases under the Freedom of Information Act would show the extent of engagement between government agencies and the technology conference. The Department of the Taoiseach has claimed that the emails released by Mr Cosgrave did not offer a full account of events.
A spokesman for Web Summit insisted yesterday that the emails published by the company represented its only correspondence with the government during the period in question. The spokesman also criticised the government’s claims that they had given the event €700,000 of financial support over the past three years.
From 2012 to 2014, IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland spent €320,000 and €405,000 respectively on the event.
The Web Summit spokesman said these payments were considered standard for large conferences and did not relate to ongoing negotiations about the event staying in Dublin.
“The money for the Web Summit was for sponsorship, to host dinners and for exhibition stands,” Alan Hobbs, the head of communications at Enterprise Ireland, said yesterday.
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He explained that the agency pays to hire stands or host events at conferences all over the world, reselling the space to small Irish businesses who would not otherwise have been able to cover the cost of attending.
The Department of the Taoiseach did not respond to a request for further information or details of any other correspondence between it and Web Summit.
Dara Calleary, the Fianna Fail enterprise spokesman, said the government should explain its plans rather than waiting for documents to be released under freedom of information laws.
“Threatening the organisers with documents is not good enough. The emails speak for themselves. There were issues from last November that were not addressed and the government’s attitude was ‘It will be all right on the night’,” Mr Calleary said.
“The government badmouthing that has gone on is not fair. [Web Summit] is a small company built by young Irish people out of nothing. It is exactly the sort of thing we want in this country but it’s being badmouthed in a way that would never happen to a big multinational,” Mr Calleary said.
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In his emails, Mr Cosgrave criticised the government for not using his event as an opportunity to attract more investment in Irish companies.
“You’re operating in a parallel universe where a jobs announcement or a photo opportunity at Web Summit is the biggest opportunity you see. Meanwhile other governments are cleaning up under your nose. How can you be outplayed by the British government in your own backyard? Or by the Dutch, the French, the Danes? It’s surreal,” Mr Cosgrave wrote.