Mr. John McMahon:

The Deputy also asked about the construction of corrals. As I mentioned, over 1 million people were reportedly in the Phoenix Park in 1979. I have heard doubts and questions about that figure because there were no counters involved. We had counters at this year's event. For control reasons, we knew exactly how many people were coming in through the gates. No such facilities were used in 1979. I do not know whether 1 million people were there. Anyway, let us say that there were. It was expected that over 500,000 people would show up at this year's event. Corralling is a necessary control mechanism for a crowd of that size. As it turned out, a crowd of that size did not show up. We had to plan on the basis of the best guess prior to the event, which was that there would be more than 500,000 people in attendance.

The Deputy referred to the effect on the park of three big events that were held there this year - the Ed Sheeran concerts, the Bloom festival, which is in its tenth or 11th year, and the papal visit, which thankfully does not happen very often. We hosted a multiplicity of things as well as those events. We host up to 300 events in the Phoenix Park every year, including charity runs. Approximately 10 million people visit the park every year. Over 10 million people of all shapes and sizes come in through the gates to do all sorts of things. I refer, for example, to commuters and those who visit various facilities in the park, including Dublin Zoo and Farmleigh.

I thank the Deputy for her kind comments about the Phoenix Park. We are very proud of how good a facility it is. Deputies might not be aware that it recently won a gold medal at the world urban parks conference in Melbourne. We are very proud of that as well. We think we present the Phoenix Park to an exceptionally high standard. That has been verified by an international benchmark. I am not saying I could not do even better things with the Phoenix Park if I had an open chequebook. I would be delighted to do so.