Dublin needs to have a major conference centre. I was disappointed by the wording used by the Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, who mentioned the provision of such a centre. He said he was examining the case for the construction of a national conference centre and the active promotion of conference business. I thought, however, that the case for the construction of a national conference centre had been examined some years ago and it had been decided that there was a positive need for such a centre in Dublin. I am aware of the problems we had at that time in trying to decide on a location and we lost EU funding for that conference centre because of that dithering. Such a centre would now constitute a cost to the State but we still do not have it and, therefore, I am extremely concerned about the Minister's choice of words. We are losing out on business due to the lack of such a centre, despite the fact that 113,000 people have come here to attend conferences, a 200% increase on the 1993 figures. Just think what we could do if we had a conference centre that could accommodate far larger numbers than at present.