Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is a good point, but it still does give employment and it is the overall employment benefits that we are thinking about. They are so important. Deputy O'Keeffe and Senator Ó Céidigh addressed the question of the results of the Olympics. We heard how there were only two silver medals, but there were some pretty good performances as well. Elsewhere, team Ireland had 14 top-ten finishes and 14 top-20 finishes. I cannot remember the statistics but many of the competitors produced the best performances of their lifetimes. I have no wish to denigrate their performances. I can see the points made by Senator Ó Céidigh but I do not want to denigrate their performances, because some of them did very well and just missed the medals.