John O'Mahony (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and to support the Bill. It will ensure that Ireland's bid for the 2023 World Cup has every chance of success. There has been some suggestion in recent days that this has been rushed and is exposing the State to enormous costs and risks. I do not subscribe to that. The Bill ensures that everything is above board and transparent and that is very important. If we were to flip the coin here and have a situation where the Government or the Minister were not supporting the Irish bid, we would be pleading with him to do so. It is important that it be supported.

This bid has been thoroughly worked through in the last four years, initially by the previous two Ministers for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Donohue and the current Taoiseach. Every Rugby World Cup since its inception in the late 1980s has been profitable and there is no reason why 2023 will be any different. I am glad to have been given information by the Minister about the tournament fee. I had thought that we would have to pay that fee as soon as we won the bid, as we hopefully will, but I now learn that it is in fact after the tournament. Based on the experience of other World Cups the financial exposure will be limited.

The Minister referred to the whole concept of this bid as a co-operation between the Administrations in the North and the South and between the IRFU and the GAA. Having been very much involved in the GAA all my life, I know that the organisation took a very big decision in the early 2000s when it looked like the refurbishment of the Landsdowne Road stadium was going to force the Irish rugby team to play its home internationals abroad. The then President of the GAA, our colleague Mr. Seán Kelly MEP, was instrumental in taking the decision to co-operate. The unique co-operation everywhere on the island will hopefully be reflected in this House and in the passing of this legislation. This bid will give the country a profile that no amount of money could buy. I remember that 20 or 30 years ago there was suggestion that Ireland bid for the Olympics-----