CASE FOR A NATIONAL STADIUM

Sir, - At last the penny has dropped

Sir, - At last the penny has dropped. It has taken the threat to the U2 gigs at Lansdowne Road to wake up the trance-like robots that pass themselves off as citizens of a modern state and bring home the absolute necessity for a state of the art stadium on an open site with rail and bus access.

I have spent years cajoling and moaning to the press, to sports bodies, supporters clubs, government Ministers, etc., with little success. They all seem more intent on pointing the finger at each other and doing what we Irish do best, squabbling among ourselves.

The money is there, the market is there, yet we still try to make do with 19th- century stadiums, Lansdowne Road and Croke Park, both of which are totally unsuited to modern conditions as they are now in constricted, built-up inner city areas.

I hope that our new Taoiseach (a sporting man by all accounts) will bang some heads together and get things moving even at this late stage. Must we always play catchup with our neighbours? - Yours, etc.,

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Niall Ginty,

National Stadium Action, Rosemount Avenue, Dublin 5.