Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I suspect the Deputy might be surprised. What was interesting was that a nation such as the United States would choose the National Aquatic Centre and state it was one of the best facilities it had seen anywhere in the world. We have been very quick to knock and condemn it and yet the United States acknowledged it was one of the best facilities available. I suspect there will be a huge amount of interest in going to watch the synchronised swimming team.

Use of the sports facilities is just one aspect. UCD and UL have made bids in an effort to try to attract not the large countries but some of the smaller countries and the individual sports from other countries which may yet be successful.

It is too early to tie down tourism. As we know, people book later and it is still only the end of 2010 and the Olympics will not take place for 20 months. It will probably only be towards the end of next year before we will see what the tourism impact will be but we are very much focusing on it. Even when I was in London for the day at the World Travel Market meeting with the various industry groups, we discussed this and they reckoned quite a number of people will want to get out of London at that time and that there may be potential there.

Enterprise Ireland is pursuing the business area because there is great potential there for people to be involved not only in construction but at the time of the games.

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