Taxpayers need value for money

AS taxpayers will soon learn to their cost, national football stadiums can be notoriously expensive.

Yet, with the Government poised to build a new stadium either at Lansdowne Road or Abbotstown, foreign examples show it can be done without breaking the bank.

Take Portugal, for instance, a football-mad nation currently building seven new facilities and renovating two more in preparation for Euro 2004. The total bill is expected to come to around €800 million.

Compare that with the outrageous price tag of €1 billion originally pinned on Ireland’s so-called Bertie Bowl, regarded as a white elephant and a monumental ego trip for the Taoiseach.

Admittedly, labour and other costs here are exorbitant but by any yardstick the comparative figures are way out of kilter. In economic terms, Germany offers a more realistic comparison but even there a dozen stadiums are now being renovated or rebuilt at a total cost of €1.4bn.

Understandably, the FAI may be somewhat envious of Wembley, but with estimates for the London project running over €1bn, it promises to be the world’s costliest soccer stadium.

Perhaps a more meaningful comparison from Ireland’s viewpoint is Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, which boasts a retractable roof, seats 74,000 people and cost only €200m.

There is a lesson here for the Government. Whether they opt for the green fields of Abbotstown or the suburbs of Lansdowne, the project should be based on the experience of other nations.

The bottom line is that Ireland’s new stadium must be cost effective and rigorously monitored without incurring the appalling over-runs which typify so many State ventures.

Above all, taxpayers must get value for money.