Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Like Deputy Barry and many others who have spoken or commented on this Bill, I believe we would all welcome a globally important sporting event such as the Rugby World Cup to the country for a range of reasons. Obviously, significant numbers of people in this country appreciate the sport and many people play and love the sport. There also will be potentially a significant economic benefit to the State in terms of the event being hosted here. Arguably, the international attention the country would receive as a result of hosting an event like this would be beneficial. All of those are reasons to be supportive of the bid and of the Government supporting the bid.

However, I also have concerns about this issue. Given the speed with which this has been pushed through, I have not had enough time to even fully go through in my mind what are all the potential downsides, dangers and problems we need to look out for. It is important to flag some of them and as has already been noted, to push all this through in one night, as it looks as though will happen, is problematic in that regard.

Crucially, we need to be sure that with State funding going into this, we come out on the plus side. That means having financial projections, budgets, costings, etc., in order that we can look at the financial arithmetic of it all if it comes to pass and be fairly confident that there will be a net benefit. Unfortunately, I did not hear the Minister's speech. I am scanning through it. No doubt he alluded to the potential benefits. In particular, he refers to the 450,000 high-spending visitors. I have heard figures, such as €1.2 billion, floating around. The Minister, Deputy Ross, might indicate whether that is the figure that is floating around.

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