Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Keegan and his officials for coming before this committee, as it is important that controversial matters of national debate such as this are as transparent as possible. It is helpful that Mr. Keegan's statement is now on the public record and I thank the Chairman and the committee for allowing this.

I must declare my interest in the GAA as I am a lifelong member and chairman of my local club, but I have no input in national decisions, especially those relating to concerts in Croke Park. I will also declare that I am a fan of Garth Brooks and have attended his concerts previously, though I did not have tickets for this event. This is a matter of serious concern, and reputational damage has occurred nationally and internationally. We can all learn serious lessons. I will not engage in the blame game and political opportunism, as they are unhelpful. I was a member of a local authority for eight years and fully understand that there is a statutory process, as Mr. Keegan has outlined. It is important that politicians and those in the know, such as representative bodies, promoters and businesspeople, were fully aware of the statutory process. It has been shown that the statutory process is deficient when it comes to organising national events. The licensing process needs to be reviewed, though that is work for another day. Perhaps there should be definitive licensing for large national venues such as Croke Park, given the number of events in question.

The statutory decision-making process has been outlined by Mr. Keegan, as have the criteria the council is obliged to consider. These criteria include disruption caused to neighbourhoods and residents, the scale and magnitude of concerts and traffic and crowd management. Mr. Keegan referred to the fact that three concerts by One Direction had already taken place at Croke Park this year. I am confused by why any extra concerts were allowed. Mr. Keegan has outlined that economic benefit is not a central consideration, but I believe it should be. Many cities around Ireland and the world proactively pitch for such concerts.

There is a conflict. Given Mr. Keegan's defence, I do not understand how three concerts could be allowed. Could he elaborate a little further on the decision? Any reasonable person would consider that allowing the matinées that were offered by the promoters would contribute to a greater intensification of the problem in terms of traffic and crowd management on the concert days. Serious ramifications would have arisen for transport, crowd management and getting people in and out of the venue. Given what Mr. Keegan said, I do not understand how he would have allowed that to happen yet not allow five concerts to go ahead. Could he explain his position further?

Hindsight is a great thing. I do not engage in the blame game. Given the economic benefit that has been lost to Dublin city and the country, and given that as Deputy Dooley said, Mr. Keegan was willing to consider four events, would he not have allowed the five consecutive events on a one-off basis with the special condition that it would never happen again? Was that not considered? I would welcome a response to the question.

I was concerned today to hear Mr. Keogan has strong family connections and interests in the local area. Given that, would Mr. Keegan not have allocated the decision making to another senior official within the local authority? I do not say that with disrespect to Mr. Keogan. He outlined how he arrived at his decision. To avoid any accusation of a conflict of interest, would Mr. Keegan not have thought delegating the decision making power to another official in the local authority would have been more appropriate?