Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is absolutely mind-boggling this Government has turned down the opportunity to host the World Rally Championships in Kerry, Waterford and Limerick over the next three years. Motorsport Ireland has been forced to decline the invitation due to lack of funding coming from Government. An event screening application was submitted to the Department back in October. We had the chance for a relatively limited amount of money of €3 million to €4 million per year for three years to showcase the whole of Munster to viewing figures of about 600 million and to have thousands of people thronging towns and cities in Munster for those years. I am aware there was a funding difficulty and a problem with timing, but the Government could have explored other options and made the funding conditional on it perhaps taking place during the shoulder season to avoid clashes with the tourism situation. It is clear there was nobody in government prepared to take this on and drive it. The lack of interest from Government and the Government parties is absolutely disgraceful.

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