Further details of the Government's plans for a major sports campus, which will incorporate a national stadium and Olympic-size pool, were revealed in Dublin yesterday.
The Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Dr McDaid said the new Sports Campus Ireland project would "in every sense be a world-class one".
The 500-acre site at Abbotstown, in west Dublin, will serve a diverse range of sports, including tennis, golf, equestrian, basketball, soccer, Gaelic games, hockey, rugby and badminton. The centrepieces will be the 80,000-seat Stadium Ireland and the 50-metre Olympic-standard swimming pool. At the Campus Sports Ireland Development offices in Blanchardstown, Dr McDaid said, "I believe strongly that what we are building here represents a major national and community amenity, and that it will contribute to Ireland's quality of life in the medium term." The plans envisage a range of facilities for a wide sweep of sporting events and training.
These include a multi-purpose indoor arena seating up to 20,000, other multipurpose halls and outdoor pitches for training, accommodation for athletes, a sports science and medical centre, headquarters and meeting rooms for all national governing bodies of sport, a golf academy, a tennis centre, a velodrome for cycling, a children's play and educational facility, as well as hotels and restaurants.
Dr McDaid said he hoped the Community Games, the Special Olympics and the Paralympics would all feel at home in the surroundings proposed. Experts involved in the preparation of the plan have said that Sports Campus Ireland represents about three-quarters of the facilities necessary for an Olympic bid. Dr McDaid said: "I'm not suggesting that that ought to be the next step, but neither do I believe we should ever allow our sights to be set low." An award-winning German firm of architects, Behnisch, Behnisch and Partners, has won the contract for the stadium. The renowned Stuttgart-based firm designed the stadium for the 1972 Munich Olympics and part of the Bundestag.
A panel of international architects will be retained to work on individual elements of the plan.
Work is expected to begin on the plan's first element, the national aquatic centre, to be known as the Pool at Abbotstown, this summer.
Given the estimated £350 million cost to the Exchequer, the Minister said there was "an imperative need to secure value for money". Acknowledging the severe infrastructural disadvantages the Blanchardstown area suffered, Dr McDaid announced a high-level group was being set up to examine the public transport needs of the campus. The Minister said he hoped the project will benefit the people in the area, pointing out that a key element will be a 100-acre parkland development. To be feasible, the project will need the backing of all the country's sports governing bodies.
The Government is hoping that the Football Association of Ireland will abandon its plans for a competing soccer stadium at Eircom Park and become partners in Sports Campus Ireland.
The Taoiseach and the FAI will meet again in nine days. The FAI's board of management will meet next week to discuss the issue.