Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Garth Brooks debacle has continued and I sincerely hope we will not have to talk about it next Tuesday.

The reality is that there is a willingness on the part of the performer to do the five concerts. I agree with Senator Crown's comments on the city manager in the sense he ruled definitively on this issue, indicating there was no flexibility and the law seems to be the law in this regard but afterwards offered the option of a fourth concert. The exact position is open to debate. I am honestly not sure what the city manager can do at this stage. Talk of emergency legislation is fanciful.

The statement from Garth Brooks offers some hope of a compromise, and I heard a very sensible suggestion from the Minister of State, Deputy Joe Costello, that he have three concerts in Ireland at the beginning of his world tour and two at the end, which should accommodate everybody. I take issue with what Senator Crown said about the Taoiseach. Obviously I will defend the Taoiseach, but in fairness, Ministers travel all over the world on trade missions to try to bring business into the country. The Ministers at the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport go to various parts of the world, at expense to bring tourism to the country. At the end of the day, the Taoiseach is being criticised for making a phone call to ask people to have a chat about this event to see if something can be done. That is unreasonable. Let me reiterate that we do something to amend this legislation, which is the fundamental point.