The construction of a National Stadium at Abbotstown is part of a long and ongoing saga which has created thousands of inches of news copy and cost the taxpayer many millions of euros.

It was following a PricewaterhouseCoopers study in 1999 that the Government, in January 2000, decided to build a National Stadium at Abbotstown, which would be the centrepiece of a "campus of sporting excellence". The project was very much associated with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and was seen as something that would stand as a monument to his period in office and the economic boom.

The cost at that stage was estimated at €356 million, though businessman Mr JP McManus was to contribute €63.5 million. Campus and Stadium Ireland Ltd (CSID) was established to take the project through design and construction stage.

In November 2000 this company put the project out to tender and the first two stages had been completed when, in June 2001, it was put on hold pending the outcome of a study by consultants High-Point Rendel.

When the study was published, it revealed that the whole campus, including offsite infrastructure, would cost €889 million, a huge increase on the original estimate.

The report criticised the management and planning of the project and said it would not be realised in the course of the Government's lifetime. Mr Ahern announced that rather than an 80,000-seat stadium, a smaller, 65,000-seater would be built.

A working group was appointed to look into the project. During the general election campaign in April 2002, Mr Michael McDowell, of the Progressive Democrats, referred to the campus project as a "Ceausescu-era Olympic project". Soon afterwards Fianna Fáil dropped the campus element of the project from its election manifesto but pledged to continue with the building of a stadium.

After the election, the programme for Government listed the construction of a stadium among its objectives but did not specify the Abbotstown site.

Two weeks ago the Government, in what was seen as a climbdown by Mr Ahern, announced the decision to drop the stadium as a publicly funded project. It would now be built with private-sector money, the Cabinet decided.

To date, €63.9 million has been spent on the overall campus project: €55.5 on the construction of the aquatic and leisure centre; €6.1 million for CSID administration, executive services and project management; and €2.3 million in respect of infrastructure, master planning and other site surveys for the whole campus site.

The High-Point Rendel report did not include the cost of moving the State farm and laboratories at Abbotstown to another site, on the grounds that the current facilities were inadequate and would have had to be replaced anyway.

A new State farm has been bought in Clane, Co Kildare, for €7.2 million. The agrilabs and State laboratory move is costing €200 million. They are being moved to State-owned land at Backweston, Celbridge, Co Kildare. The contracts for the move were signed before the recent emphasis on public finance expenditure restraint began, and the move cannot be delayed until a more favourable time.

The sports campus, if it had gone ahead, would have included: a stadium; a multi-purpose indoor arena, seating 15,000-20,000; sports, science and medical facilities; a velodrome; a golf academy; a tennis centre; other sporting facilities; headquarters and office accommodation for a range of sports; and parkland and a lake.