Forget the drama and get on with it

EXPECT next week’s political agenda to be dominated by a Punch and Judy show garnished by a generous helping of what we might call “hip replacement syndrome”.

In other words, expect a revival of the National Stadium saga as the issue is due before Cabinet on Tuesday.

The Punch and Judy show involves Part XXVII of that old row between Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats. But beneath this political game is a more wide-ranging theme which some observers call hip-replacement syndrome.

With due respect to my parents' generation, this syndrome involves assessing almost any public spending on non-health items by how many hip-replacement operations could be got in its place.

Let me immediately own up that I could find myself in that artificial hip queue sooner rather than later, that’s if the by-products of my other bad habits don’t get me first. But let me also state my conviction that hip replacements and such like cannot be the main priority for any nation.

This will-we-won’t-we build the national stadium has gone on long enough. And thankfully, there is an immediate deadline now which concentrates the mind.

The UEFA inspectors are due in Ireland on September 16 to assess this country’s pledge to provide two of eight venues for the joint Irish-Scottish bid for the 2008

European Championships. A national stadium is central to that bid, which will be decided upon in mid-December.

As things stand, soccer is banned from another potential venue, the GAA’s splendidly refurbished Croke Park. The IRFU have made it clear the necessary upgrade to Landsdowne Road, which would cut

capacity to some 35,000 people, can only be done if a national stadium goes ahead. Ironically, the FAI shelved its own stadium plan on the understanding that it would become anchor tenant in a national stadium.

The PDs used well the issue politically throughout the general election campaign. The phoney ring to much of these disputations could be discerned by the ease with which PD president Michael McDowell slipped in to serve in Mr Ahern’s cabinet.

It is hard to imagine that Mr McDowell, just four months ago, compared Mr Ahern’s planned 80,000-seater stadium with the vain-glorious projects of the despots Mussolini and Ceaucescu. Such comments served PD electoral purposes but they were as much a travesty as the original dubbing of the project as the “Bertie Bowl”. The Taoiseach has his foibles, but excessive vanity is not one of them.

The FF-PD Programme for Government, agreed in June, refers only to a commitment to build a world-class stadium. There is no mention of its location in Abbotstown, much less the additional sports campus already mooted by Mr Ahern.

The coalition negotiation team left the issue solely to Mr Ahern and Tánaiste Mary Harney. And outstanding difficulties are likely to be settled privately at this level.

Since the renewed coalition took office, the internal debate has centred on the location and scale of the project. FF favours a larger stadium, though perhaps smaller than the originally 80,000-seater, at the originally-mooted site in Abbotstown, outside Dublin. The PDs, at best, want a modest stadium possibly located somewhere in or near the centre of Dublin.

A special inter-departmental committee looked at the matter and is expected to report in time for Tuesday’s government meeting. There are compelling reasons why the Government should proceed with a development in Abbotstown.

True, this is not an ideal time to talk about large-scale public spending on fun projects. All talk is of spending cutbacks, with the opposition charging that the Government hoodwinked their way into winning the election on May 17.

But it is also time Mr Ahern kept his nerve on this one. The project is backed by the three main sporting bodies, GAA, IRFU and FAI, as well as the

National Sports Council. The projected amount for a slimmed-down stadium of at least 500m appears large in the context of current economic woes.

But the bulk of the spending will happen over three to four years, hence, much of it will stay within the economy with a massive number of construction jobs and other spending spin-offs. It is also once-off spending which will generate a valuable future asset.

Many valid developments dating from the Shannon Scheme in 1927 began life by being politically vilified and went on to become national treasures. Other examples include Government Buildings and the Royal Hospital. In short, this is about spending to enhance the economy and the nation’s

social fabric. It would leave Dublin and Ireland in line to host a plethora of European and world sporting events. The 2008 European Championships could be only the start.

Equally, there can now be little doubt about the siting of the stadium in Abbotstown, as it is owned by the State and ready to develop.

Ideas being floated by the PDs about various city centre venues are flawed seriously. There appears to be no ready site which is of the required 25 to 35 acres in area.

Such centre city proposals face myriad planning objections, which, at the minimum, would lead to long delays. Some of them face legal

entanglements as to title and availability for such a project.

In summary, there is ample scope for Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats to reach an honourable compromise and build a scaled-down 65,000-seat national stadium at Abbotstown. It is time they got on with it.