John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

The straight answer is that it was necessary to cut our cloth according to our measure. We had to start somewhere and it was decided to start with what I outlined. The training area that will be provided for both professional rugby and soccer, and amateur games such as Gaelic games and hockey, is presented in the plan as a shamrock concept providing dedicated nodes for rugby, soccer and Gaelic games, located around a central core building designed to be shared by all the training sports teams and athletes.

The central core building will have living accommodation, a restaurant, fitness training and gym facilities and sports, medical and recovery areas. There will be dedicated changing and training facilities and pitches clustered around this block. A range of pitches will be provided in each of the three dedicated areas to ensure that teams can train in a secure and private location in any weather conditions. Thus, they will be adequately prepared for various levels of competition There will be natural turf and synthetic pitches, a number of which will be flood-lit.

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