Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I listened with interest to the Minister's speech. There is not much point, however, in rehearsing the history of a member of the minority party in Government who talked about the Ceausescu-style project in Abbotstown. I have always been somewhat ambivalent about these allegedly Ceausescu-type projects. We should have had decent cost estimates, which we rarely have, at the beginning of the debate, as distinct from fudged, guessed and sometimes, I suspect, deliberately distorted estimates. We have a culture in a large part of the public sector whereby one will only get approval for something if one keeps the price low. Once approval is obtained, however, it appears that it was never really going to cost that much. It is never said, of course, and at the Committee of Public Accounts people will deny that it was ever the case.

I heard the Minister of State responsible for decentralisation explain that the delays envisaged in that programme — which were not originally envisaged — were due to the need to deal with such matters through proper EU procedures. This begs the question as to whether the Government did not know when it made the original announcement that it would have to operate through EU procedures. I do not make this as a political point. I am saying we have put ourselves into a culture where we seem to believe the necessary way to deal with funding in the public sector is to underestimate, leave out a bit, get through the filters of the Department of Finance, get started and then claim the job cannot be finished without additional money. This arose at Punchestown and was evident in the gradual mushrooming of the cost of the huge original project at Abbotstown.

There were interesting and serious questions about the location, costs, etc. of the Abbotstown project. However, the principle of a prestigious world quality campus and stadium never seemed as outrageous to me as some in my party and others suggested. The Taoiseach might have let his sense of his own position in history run away with him somewhat. This does not get away from the fact that there was much to be said of it in principle. We still embarrassingly perceive ourselves as an impoverished country that could not be expected to have the facilities other countries have, but we could and we should. However, we will not get them without spending money on them.

This country needs and deserves to get such national sporting facilities for reasons articulated by the Minister, which I share. I believe one of the necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for sporting success is to have good facilities and the sense of being involved. I am glad the project in Lansdowne Road is now apparently going ahead. However, I have huge questions and reservations about the way one of the two organisations directly involved carries on its business. As the House has rules about mentioning outside bodies, I will restrain myself.

I will put it in a positive sense. Many of us would have seen the IRFU as the definition of a fuddy-duddy organisation run by men in blazers who had lost contact with reality years ago. However, the way it adjusted to the extraordinary change in the culture of rugby and its ability to show flexibility and imagination, for example in the decision to have four serious professional teams — the four provinces — showed a capacity to deal with the world as it was changing, which the GAA has also shown. My omission of reference to another organisation is sufficient commentary on it without breaking the rules of the House.