Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It would be a proud day for Ireland, North and South, if we were to win the bid to host the Rugby World Cup, but that would be the easy part. The challenge would start from that day. The easy part is us passing legislation underwriting the company that would be formed. The challenge is how to undertake the biggest sporting tournament this country has hosted thus far. I know there are people who are sceptical and who are naysayers about the bid, but they are the very same people who are supporting or looking for Ireland to make a bid for the European soccer championship. It would be a much bigger job, and if we undertake the Rugby World Cup, we would be sending out a message that Ireland would be capable of taking on any of these major sporting events. Given that we are a small nation, it would be a very good day for Ireland not only to host it, but to be successful in hosting it.

Having said all of that, there are major problems and issues with our approach. I do not want to be negative, so I will try to be as positive as possible and offer any solutions that I or anybody else can come up with. Once we go down this road, it has to be successful. It cannot fail in any shape or form but it is, as I said, a major undertaking, especially given where we are starting from. We cannot host any tournament at the moment because in this city, where we have two of the stadia associated with this bid, one cannot get a bed in a hotel, hostel or bed and breakfast. We are starting from a bad position. We have to address our housing and homelessness crisis in the first instance. Thankfully, the Luas works in the city are near an end, but again, we have a transport problem in Dublin because we cannot move around the city with ease. They are major problems that need to be addressed and six years is a very short time for infrastructural work.

While we might have the stadia, we do not have the facilities at the world class level that I think is required. Hopefully, moneys will be spent on upgrading the training facilities that will be required for all of these international teams when they come. I hope that, when the bid is successful, we start very quickly on it, similar to when we had the Special Olympics in Croke Park, and especially that we start to develop the host towns, because that went very well when we had the Special Olympics here in the city. Certain key towns or villages, or in this case, probably rugby clubs, become the host for not the teams, but the supporters. As we saw in the European championships recently, Irish fans were located in two parts of France, which was slightly bizarre, with one group at one end of France, where two matches were held, and the other group at the far end. If we are planning, we should locate teams and supporters in one area for that portion of the tournament so that they can enjoy Ireland.

We are a small country and obviously it is not that difficult to move around, but in parts of the country, we still do not have the links that are required in parts of the country, for example, the major motorway between Cork and Limerick, or between Limerick and Galway. The gaps in our public and private transport infrastructure have to be addressed. It even applies to such routes as from Dublin to Derry, and this is obviously connected with the Executive in the North, and to both the Minister's hats of sport and transport.

The Minister needs to appeal to the new Northern Executive, when it is formed in September, to get on with the work of building the motorway network or at least the dual-carriageway network between Dublin and Derry and between Derry and the rest of the country as such issues will hamper some of the planning. I believe that will cause problems for the company that is hosting this. I will deal with some of the other issues as we go through the amendments.

The amendments that I have seen tabled thus far are practical amendments to allow the Minister to appear before a committee to inform us of the progress as we are going along. Six years will pass quickly and as a Parliament, we need to be able not to hold the Minister to account, but to give him both the encouragement required and the support if practical problems emerge.

See this speech in context