TWO American entertainment corporations deny claims by Irish promoters that they are involved in a proposed €7 billion theme park for north Dublin.

Owen O’Callaghan, a Cork property developer, said yesterday that six leading entertainment companies are backing the project, including 20th Century Fox and Sony. But two of the companies have denied this.

Jim Yeager, head of publicity with Universal, said: “Universal has not had meetings with any representatives of this group and we have no intention of developing any parks in Ireland at this time, or indeed any time.”

Charles Grace, a spokesman for Six Flags, the world’s largest theme-park operator, denied that the company was involved. “We are not planning to build any kind of park in Ireland at this time,” he said.

Despite the denials, the Vega City consortium still maintains that international entertainment corporations are backing the project. O’Callaghan, chairman of United Entertainment Partners, the company behind the proposed north Dublin development, said: “That is not what we have heard from them. We are very much of the opinion that they are very interested in this project and are prepared to come to Dublin.

“The only reason I can think of that they have said that is because we are not firm enough with the proposals yet.”

O’Callaghan says UEP has also had talks with 20th Century Fox, Sony and MGM. Other companies which the consortium is connecting with the Dublin theme park are the News Corporation and Virgin Airlines. The News Corporation is parent company of The Sunday Times. None of these companies was able to confirm having held meetings with the UEP consortium.

O’Callaghan added: “I have not had discussions with them personally but we have had. Louis Maguire has had discussions with these people.”

Maguire, a director of UEP, also says he has discussed the project with executives at various entertainment corporations and they are willing to back the proposal financially. “All these corporations are assessing the project seriously and once we have a master plan in place we can then go to the boards of these corporations and lock down the deals,” Maguire said.

“The initial costs would be around €3 billion, and we currently have that on the table from the corporations which have expressed interest.”

A meeting of Fingal council tomorrow will assess the validity of the four square mile theme park, which promises 40,000 jobs but would need 27m visitors to be viable.

“They should be accepting this with open arms and saying this is a great thing for the country. It is the sort of thing that we want to develop and people should be delighted to get on board,” Maguire said.

Fingal planners fear that the theme park is really a cover for a retail development.

O’Callaghan is unwilling to change “to any extent” the retail aspects of the development. “The theme parks are a very important element of the development but so, equally, are the retail and the hotels,” he said. O’Callaghan envisaged that certain aspects could go ahead separately, although the consortium’s main concern “was that the complete project goes ahead”.

Maguire rejected the notion that the theme park is a “Trojan horse” for a retail development.

Planners have dismissed the viability of the park as “highly questionable”. One planner assessed UEP’s submission as “an extremely rudimentary and unprofessional effort. One of the artist’s impressions seemed to be from a fairy-tale book”.

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