Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The committee is working very hard and we have a number of cultural events, both in Ireland and Britain. Naturally enough, Londoners will be fed up with all the people who will be there, even though they have an interest in sport themselves. We are targeting them and we are also targeting people who would usually go to London that year and encourage them to come to Ireland. We are organising a number of cultural events in Dublin, Kilkenny, Galway and places like that. We are working hard and we are trying to target the displaced people who might otherwise go to London. In spite of being criticised about not getting teams, we are doing well in the tourism and business part of it. We have got €200 million worth of contracts already and we are expecting that to rise to €500 million. It is all good news for the country.

See this speech in context