Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Everyone is positive about this proposal. The Government is supportive of it. We must sit down with the IRFU and the State agencies such as Fáilte Ireland to work on it. Hosting the rugby world cup in New Zealand was worth €500 million to its economy. This amount would be a great boost to our economy. The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, and I are prepared to meet the IRFU and Fáilte Ireland. We must bring every stakeholder on board. People have referred to shared facilities, as did Deputy Dooley. He was correct to do so. Everyone is open to helping the country and I do not doubt that every sporting organisation would play its part and make its facilities available if we drew a major international tournament to Ireland.

See this speech in context