The manner in which the Taoiseach has executed a public U-turn on his pet Campus and Stadium Ireland project leaves a lot to be desired.
After several bouts of tension between himself and his partners, the Progressive Democrats, over the scale and costs of providing a national stadium and sports campus before the general election and the high-profile PD challenge to the "Ceausescu-era Olympic project" at the height of the campaign, Mr Ahern was still talking the big talk about Abbotstown right up to the moment that it was shelved on Tuesday.
How circumstances have changed in the three months since the new Government was formed. Mr Ahern's dream of "a stadium for the new century" to fulfill his vision of "an icon for the island of Ireland in the new millennium" died when the cold facts of the Campus and Stadium Ireland project were put back on the table. The Taoiseach, Tánaiste and the Government decided on Tuesday that, in current circumstances, it was not in a position to provide any Exchequer funding for a national stadium. They added the rider "in the medium-term" as a face-saver. They are to explore the possibility of private funding instead.
It is extraordinary that it took so long for the viability of Mr Ahern's edifice complex at Abbotstown to be properly evaluated. The initial estimate for the project was £281 million in January, 2000. An independent cost benefit analysis of the whole project earlier this year found that it could cost £704 million (€888.8 million), double the amount estimated by the project chairman only a year before.
For all of this sorry saga of incompetence and irresponsibility, the Government is right to stop the supply of taxpayers' money to Abbotstown in current financial circumstances. A stadium and sports campus of such grandiose design could not be justified with the scale of cutbacks in health, education and elsewhere since the election. More's the pity the Taoiseach didn't come clean with the electorate in May.
There is a case for a new medium-sized national stadium near the centre of Dublin. It has been damaged - possibly beyond repair - by the manner of the Taoiseach's U-turn. He promised €76.2 million of taxpayers' money to the FAI to back-off on the building of Eircom Park. The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, guaranteed €127 million to the GAA for the redevelopment of Croke Park. And the IRFU was promised there would be a new stadium for its games.
There is a mess now. UEFA, the governing body for European football, arrives in Dublin on Monday to inspect the stadium facilities for the joint Scottish/Irish bid to hold the European championships in 2008. And thanks to the Government's fumbling, it will find only one super stadium at Croke Park where it has no right to play the game.