Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Yes, it was taxpayers' money. Croke Park has now been finished for GAA activities, including camogie and ladies' football as well as hurling and football. Thanks to the GAA, the stadium will now be opened up while Lansdowne Road is under development. The Government has already made a decision to put €190 million of €290 million into that development.

Although the issue has moved on, as I said at the weekend, it is regrettable that we do not and will not have, probably for 30 years, a national stadium with proper facilities. That is why our young athletes go abroad to train. Even the Tipperary hurlers went abroad last week, and rightly so, to use facilities in Portugal. I regret that we will not have such facilities here. We will have two football stadia but we will not have a proper campus related to them, as most other countries have. That is a sorry day.

For 13 years I have been involved in one way or another in arguments about the plan to develop Croke Park. I wish the Lansdowne Road authorities, as well as Deputy Quinn and others who are involved, every success in getting the plan through but it will not be easy.

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