Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

It will have to if it is to meet the target date because it will very much form part of the 2016 celebrations. We have an obvious target date.

The main reason for moving it, and I have looked at many aspects of it, is the type of training facilities a modern national theatre needs. It needs a minimum of two theatres for training etc. as well as all the ancillary facilities. The specification was done with the Abbey Theatre, benchmarked internationally and completed. That is easily transferable from the site on the quays to the GPO because the specification does not change. That is why we can do a quick examination at the GPO to see if this fits, so to speak. As I said to the Deputy, I had a lot of work done on this and I gave that specification. I was asked about it, somebody had a look at it and it does work. The original reason was that the current site does not have the physical capacity for all the modern facilities required by a national theatre.

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