Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

It is on the edge of the city in the sense that it is on the outside of the M50. The Minister of State and I will disagree about this and about how our city develops. If I represented that area, I would possibly welcome a facility in it. However, this stadium was to be a national stadium and there is a world of difference between a national stadium in a city centre location and one in an out of town location. I favour the concept of placing a national stadium in a city centre location where tens of thousands of people can walk to it, as they walk to Croke Park and Lansdowne Road. This approach to a stadium is the correct one in terms of how it affects the city and the game itself. Walking down O'Connell Street during an all-Ireland final and seeing Clare and Cork supporters filling the street wall to wall is one of the proudest and most exciting and invigorating occasions in this country. Seeing Munster and Leinster rugby fans in the vicinity of Lansdowne Road is similarly exciting. The meeting of tens of thousands of fans on the streets and in the pubs before and after the game is as much the essence of the event for me as the game itself. One cannot get this in a location on the edge of the motorway system. As much as I would like to make it out from my constituency to the proposed stadium at Adamstown, I would find it easier to go to Sligo via public transport.

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