Kevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to respond to the Minister. He has accused us of not treating this bid fairly. We all knew this bid was coming down the tracks for several years. It is because of the Minister that we are here tonight asking questions. He did not afford us the chance to have pre-legislative scrutiny of this legislation in the respective committee. It annoys me when the Minister throws the buck back at us. It is not our fault. We are just trying to be honest Teachtaí Dála and be seen to be working on behalf of the electorate as much as the sporting organisations in question.

Will the Minister be seeking to take out an insurance bond in the financial markets to safeguard our Exchequer funding relating to the underwriting of the tournament? Will the issue of clean stadiums arise?

10 o’clock

Obviously, as one can see, many existing stadiums have sponsorship and hoarding. Will all the stadiums have to be stripped clean so the world rugby union will be able to get its own advertisers onto all the sites at the expense of companies such as SuperValu, which advertise in Croke Park, for example?

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