INTERNATIONAL ATHLETES will not base themselves in Ireland in preparation for the Olympics in London in 2012 because the quality of sporting facilities are not up to standard, the head of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) said yesterday.
OCI president Pat Hickey made the comment as he accompanied President Mary McAleese and her husband, Martin, on a tour of the multi-billion Olympics site in east London yesterday.
“There isn’t a great take-up of facilities,” said Mr Hickey, “because Abbotstown [in Dublin] is not there like it should be. Cities in the United Kingdom are offering great facilities and £50,000 to teams just to come to their place.”
He said University College Dublin and University of Limerick were likely to reach some agreements with international teams, but “Abbotstown was the perfect site”.
“It is a great project, and it will go forward. But during the economic down-turn its budget has been totally cut. The Government has to cut it, but we lost out on a huge legacy,” said Mr Hickey, who had arrived hours earlier from the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Members of the London Olympics Organising Committee are due to come to Ireland in coming months for talks on the co-operation that could take place between the two countries before and during the games.
Mr Hickey was optimistic that the Olympic flame could be taken between Belfast and Dublin. “We think that there would be phenomenal interest in that; to celebrate the peace that now exists.”
Following protests over Tibet when the flame was being taken to China, the International Olympic Council decided to stop its travel outside of the country hosting the games. However, the Olympic Council of Ireland represents the island as a whole and not just the Republic, and Mr Hickey was confident the Dublin/Belfast event would be approved over the next two months.
Meanwhile, President McAleese met Irish construction companies who are working on the Olympics site, which is spread over 260 hectares of previously desolate land in London’s east end.
Some 900 of the 9,000 staff currently on-site are Irish, she said, which has helped to relieve some of the pressures facing the Irish construction industry which has been under “ferocious pressure, and it has come to something of a standstill”.
She said many highly-qualified staff have found “opportunities – architects, project managers, builders, surveyors, you name it. As you walk around the site you can see the evidence of the Irish contribution here.
“Ten per cent of the workforce here are Irish, and they are involved in everything: from lifting the blocks all the way through to major architectural projects. So that is very good news.”
She said further opportunities would arise during the fitting-out of the Olympic buildings. “I was talking to one contractor who is bringing in cladding just north of Dublin, so that is a very good example of work being generated back in Ireland.”
Describing the work already done as “spectacular”, President McAleese said it was helping to regenerate a district that had previously been desolate.
Later, she met the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas and the Irish Chaplaincy in Britain, a charity set up by the Irish Catholic hierarchy in 1957 which works with prisoners, Travellers and the homeless.
She attended an Irish Embassy reception hosted by Ambassador Bobby McDonagh for leading members of the Irish business and cultural community in Britain before travelling back to Dublin last night.