National Sports CampusDespite popular cynicism, the Government insists the project is on track, writes Johnny Watterson

The FAI will have moved to their new offices at Abbotstown by June 2007, the Irish Institute of Sport by the end of next year. Other governing bodies - such as those of rugby, women's GAA and hockey - are also expected to move offices or other operations midway through the four-year building phase of the new National Sports Campus.

By then, and €119 million having been spent, Abbotstown should have training centres and accommodation for all of those sports, a science and medical centre and pitches for community use. Steve Staunton and Eddie O'Sullivan will station their squads there before international matches. Olympians will decamp to Fingal and, we are assured, a coherent back-up will be in place.

But the perception of Abbotstown, the national sporting dream, persists only in the periphery of the public mind, not in the frontal lobes. Mention of the National Sports Campus brings on a sort of punch-drunk lethargy. While Lansdowne Road is nationally recognised as one of the major expressions of Irish prosperity and a can-do project, its twin brother has been left alone in the shadows very much unloved. Or perhaps disbelieved.

As people tire of the expenditure and the phased developments and the promises of a Government all kitted out for a prolonged campaign, the popular perception has been of an aquatic centre without a roof after the first big wind and one that was run by a company with absolutely no assets. For that oversight, the Government had to ask the Supreme Court to get the pool back.

Factor in widespread confusion over the once feted "Bertie Bowl" and the fact that the time allocation for the 50-metre pool suited just about everybody except elite swimmers and you can see why eyes tend to glaze over.

And yet the Government minister with responsibility remains bullish.

"Out there it is seen as a pipe dream and there is very little realisation of the fact that the capital envelope is there," says the Minister for Sport, John O'Donoghue. "It is important that I change the public perception and provide a clear understanding of the proposals and what they can deliver. This project will become a reality."

In January a new body with a statuary footing, the National Sports Campus Development Authority (NSCDA) will spring to life with a chairman, Dan Flinter, and a 12-member board. While the natural reaction is "not another board", their job is to finally dovetail with the Fingal development plan and quickly get the bulldozers moving. The appointment of project managers and designers is taking place.

But the idea is a difficult one to sell to the public given the above contexts and the fact athletes will not get to use it until 2009.

"I think there was a huge amount of confusion in the public mind in relation to what is precisely happening at Abbotstown," says O'Donoghue.

"I think there is a general appreciation that the National Aquatic Centre is there but other than that it was seen to be a site that was going to house the Bertie Bowl, but is no longer going to do that.

"People don't actually understand that as part of the Government decision to construct a stadium at Lansdowne Road there was another decision that received little or no attention."

Clearly Lansdowne Road's advantage is that it exists beside a transport route that carries tens of thousands of commuters under its West Stand every day. It is already a tangible reality.

Abbotstown remains a Government promise. There is a difference. Despite assurances and legislation, asking the public to believe in a notoriously unreliable Santa, even in late December, has its pitfalls.

"The fact that we have put it (NSCDA) on a statutory footing is evidence of our intent in relation to Abbotstown," insists O'Donoghue. "I see Abbotstown as a necklace that we continue to place the pearls on. So the Aquatic Centre is there. Phase one is next."

The pearl in place then is the Aquatic Centre. Well, precious stones often have a seamy past and that should not detract from their worth. But creating the dream is all about selling it properly, convincing the cynics that is will become reality. And as with belief in the man with the white beard and red hat, it also demands from the masses a certain willingness to suspend disbelief.

"The public, when they connect with Abbotstown at the present time, they connect with the Aquatic Centre," says O'Donoghue. "There is no doubt about that - with its woes. I have explained on numerous occasions that its woes are more imaginary than real.

It has now successfully hosted the European Short Course Championships and Special Olympics and now we have wrested control of it from Dublin Waterworld and I am not disposed to putting it out to the private arena again."

The professional and amateur training area will be presented as a "shamrock concept" revolving around a core building and pitches.

The central building will provide living accommodation, a restaurant, fitness training, gym, sports-medicine and recovery areas. Clustered around this block there will be pitches in three dedicated areas catering for the field sports. There will be natural turf and synthetic pitches, and a number will be floodlit.

In the "amateur" zone, there will be an indoor training centre, which will be "multifunctional". It will have a sports hall with 1,500 spectator seats and an ancillary hall suitable for a wide range of indoor sports.

This will provide specialist facilities for the national governing bodies of sports as well as being available for use by the general public.

Adjacent to this area there will be public, all-weather, floodlit, synthetic pitches for general use.

All of this has to fit in with the Fingal County Development Plan. Fingal Council has conducted a study to determine the preferred mix of facilities with commercial projects. That survey, when complete, will be the blueprint for planning.

But, as of now there is no detailed time-frame for the building of the various sites.

While the Ireland rugby team will eventually move to Abbotstown and may also use it in the build-up to matches, no date has been set for that move; their current pre-match location, the Killiney Castle Hotel in South Dublin, is quite a distance culturally and geographically from Blanchardstown.

The burning question of who pays in the long run for use of the complex is also an issue to be resolved, and the prospect of governing bodies coughing up has not been ruled out.

"The National Sports Campus Development Authority will be seeking to raise as much revenue as it can, obviously, in order to ensure that the facility continues to run profitably in the long term," says O'Donoghue.

"I suppose to be frank about it, if there was a deficit it would be a matter for the Department of Sport and the Minister for Finance to make a provision. That is not something I anticipate. There is no question of a free lunch."

So. The current reckoning is that it will be two years before a hockey player's foot hits the synthetic turf or a rugby player's studs sinks into a grass pitch.

"There is no reason why if we complete the National Field Sports Training centre for rugby, soccer and Gaelic games that we cannot get on with that," says O'Donoghue. "There is no reason why that would interfere, for example, with the building of an indoor training centre and so on."

So, two years before the 2012 London Olympic Games, Irish sport, we are told, will take a step into the 21st century. The Government are simply saying believe it.