McKenna: Croker residents’ planned protests ‘unhelpful’

CROKE PARK stadium director Peter McKenna has described planned protests by local residents for last night and today as “unhelpful” but has reiterated that the new pitch will be ready for the weekend’s All-Ireland SFC quarter-finals.

Works were due to begin installing the new surface soon after last night’s third U2 concert. They will continue for almost two days without pause, to the annoyance of the Croke Park Residents Association.

Their response has been to organise protests, starting last night at 1am and finishing at 6pm today, two of which will involve slow-moving convoys aimed at disrupting works which are due to be completed by Friday evening.

Patrick Gates, chairman of the Residents Association, accepts that their actions could conceivably have ramifications for the work and next weekend’s three quarter-finals but was adamant that they were absolutely necessary.

Gates said: “At this stage, the residents are just so angry that they need to highlight these issues because we have been here so many times and it has fallen on deaf ears. This episode with the U2 concerts, with work being done around the clock, has been done with absolutely no thought for the local community.”

He added: “This is a three-week process. It is two weeks ago since they started putting up the stage and the working around the clock is totally unacceptable. There needs to be more effective planning going on.

“They should have had two concerts. It would have given them two extra days to dismantle the stage and lay the pitch in sociable hours in time for the games the following weekend. This was about greed. They wanted to squeeze in one more concert regardless of the impact on the local community just to maximise profits. It’s not on. We are a living, breathing community.”

McKenna responded to those criticisms yesterday by stating that any local residents who so wished would be put up in local hotels for the duration of the work and added that the protests would only add to the disruptions.

“It is disappointing that they have decided to go public with their protests,” said McKenna. “We have tried to engage in dialogue before and after the concerts and the effect of their protests will be that it will be louder now for longer.”

Stadium officials have also agreed that there will be no truck movement in and out of the ground during the hours of midnight and 7am but the message to the wider public is that the show will go on next weekend. And on time.

The weekend’s fixtures were released at lunchtime yesterday and the stadium is to hold a Tyrone-Kildare, Cork-Donegal double-header on the Sunday followed by the standalone Kerry-Dublin fixture the following day.

ONE GAA source said that the decision not to play any games on the Saturday had nothing to do with the works on the pitch or the possibility of any hold-up.

“The pitch was not an issue,” it was claimed. No venue or date has yet been confirmed for the fourth quarter-final fixture between Mayo and the winners of the delayed round four qualifier tie between Limerick and Meath although it is certain to be played on either August 8 or 9.

All three senior football quarter-finals will be broadcast live on RTÉ 2 this weekend while Meath have been slated to meet Limerick in Portlaoise at seven o’clock on Saturday evening in the last of the championship qualifiers.

As it is, the fall of fixtures and results has afforded both the CCCC and Croke Park officials more breathing space than they might have expected when the three U2 concerts and pitch works were first confirmed.

Had Antrim and not Kerry reached the last eight they would not have been able to play on the Monday as there is no Bank Holiday in the north while the delayed Meath-Limerick qualifier has also eased the congestion.

“We always had to have the pitch ready by the Friday,” said McKenna.

“But the draw has helped us in that sense.

“As it was, we had planned to cater for four games at the stadium this weekend.”

Tickets for all four football ties went on sale this morning.

Stand tickets for Portlaoise are priced at €25 while those for Croke Park – on both days – are €10 more expensive.

Though those prices are in line with what was charged for similar fixtures last year, there is bound to be some disquiet that patrons on Monday will be charged the same for one game as those attending next Sunday’s double-header.

Officials in Croke Park were unavailable for comment yesterday evening as the stadium was in ‘lockdown’ mode from mid-afternoon ahead of the final U2 concert last night.