Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is important work. We as a country have consistently demonstrated our ambition to attract major international sports events that make a positive return to the economy, to tourism and to participation in those sports. Bidding is under way to host the Euro 2028 football championships jointly with the United Kingdom nations and Northern Ireland. The Minister has mentioned the US college football classics. There is the Europa League final. The Ryder Cup is taking place in 2027. These are huge events and there is much work ongoing on the events which have been agreed to be held here and on those we would like to host. There will be at some point a decision to be made as to whether we will seek to host the opening stages of the Tour de France in three to four years’ time. The Minister has worked on that, particularly on the Northern Ireland side.

We are drafting a major sports events policy at present that has not yet been finalised. It will be important to have that framework done. We have had much success in the projects we supported and the benefit they bring to the economy. The policy will set out our stall for the future in terms of how we do this and the criteria we use. The Department will look at the costs to the State of helping to host these events versus the benefit the events bring in. The US college football classic brings in a huge number of tourists to the country and will do so again this year. There is a massive benefit to that. We will continue to do that. In the first half of this year, I suspect we will be in a position to finalise that policy. That will be a good document, particularly if we are looking for events or people are coming to us looking to host events. This is something for which people knock on the door of the Department all the time. They will see the criteria, the kind of questions they will be asked and what is expected of them and of the Government. That will be an important policy document when finished and approved by Government.