Mr. Owen Keegan:

At this stage all of the tickets were sold. If I had said at that point that there was no prospect of a licence for holding this event over five nights no matter what measures the promoters and the GAA took, in advance of the event licensing process, they would have said I was being prejudicial. I felt that if serious efforts were made with the residents it should have been possible to get a reasonable degree of resident support to hold the event over five nights. As it happened they were unable to do that. I would have been in a difficult situation, in advance of the event licensing process, if I had said there was no way the city could accommodate such a big event and I did not want to rule it out. I wanted to give the promoters and the GAA the opportunity to address the issues but I gave no assurances.