Government are long on promises but short on delivery

TWO newspaper headlines caught my attention last weekend:

(1) “The Olympics may be held in Dublin”, and

(2) “Banks make over €300 million due to tax loophole”

There were others that were equally arresting. One said the Luas project had increased in budget from €400m to €691m. Another suggested the Dublin port tunnel construction costs had risen from €180m to €450m.

Reaction is always the same to such claims from this desk - what has jumped in price so fantastically to justify these spectacular increases. It cannot be an increase in labour costs and the cost of materials cannot have risen so swiftly. It must be that initial estimates were ridiculously off-target even if you allow for difficulties.

Reference is made to these huge sums of money because the spotlight is about to be focused on the first of those headlines - “The Olympics for Dublin”.

A confession - this particular headline was not published over the weekend, it came to my attention while I rummaged through an old file in the library. The headline is taken from “The Cork Examiner” of Monday, August 19, 1932.

The occasion was a home-coming ceremony to honour Ireland’s gold medal winners from the Olympic Games of Los Angeles - Pat O’Callaghan and Bob Tisdall. They were guests of honour at a banquet in the Gresham Hotel.

The attendance included President de Valera, Mr W. T. Cosgrave TD, Mr Joseph Devlin MP and General O’Duffy of the Olympic Council of Ireland.

This brings us to the point because the article reports that General O’Duffy told the assembled dignitaries: “I have applied unofficially for the Olympic Games in 1940 to be held in Dublin.

“The prospects of Ireland getting the Games are bright but it would involve the expenditure of half-a-million pounds on athletic, boxing and swimming stadium.”

He added: “I make bold to suggest that the proceeds of a sweepstake should be devoted to supplying the necessary facilities and I trust that the Government and the hospitals will help in this plan.”

What the story did not make plain was whether or not General O’Duffy was suggesting that separate stadiums be built for the three sports he mentioned. He made another interesting observation elsewhere in the article.

He said that the Americans had erected “a wonderful stadium” at a cost of £1,500,000 in order to secure the Olympics of 1932. “The attendance had been 120,000 a day and the whole expense of the erection of the stadium had been wiped out” he said.

The question of a stadium for Ireland is topical again because of the success of the Irish rugby team. In three weeks they will play England in Dublin and the championship title is certain to be on the line with a Grand Slam and the Triple Crown also likely to be up for grabs.

When the Government spoke of building an 80,000 seat capacity stadium at Abbotstown as part of their Campus Ireland development I was dismissive of the proposal on the basis that the stadium would be too big for Irish requirements. That opinion still holds good even though a happy confluence of events ensures that one of the few sporting occasions that would fill such a stadium is upon us. And where do we find ourselves? We find ourselves languishing in our own pit of misery, condemned to staging an historic and significant sports event in a pitiless, out-dated and inadequate arena.

Small blame to the IRFU for this. They, like the FAI, were seduced by the sweet words of government, duped by the empty promises of legislators who have wasted millions and millions of euro.

Not only that - the blunt truth is illustrated by the other headlines quoted above - they are still at it, wasting millions of taxpayers’ money. They are long on promises and short on delivery.

Do not make the mistake of reading any political bias into this article, this is not exclusively an anti FF rant or an anti PD outburst. The fact that General O’Duffy called for the erection of a new stadium as long ago as 1932 serves to show how irresponsible successive governments have been in this regard.

Do not make the mistake either of thinking that in highlighting a neglect that has been nothing short of disgraceful we are suggesting that the provision of a new stadium is more important than improving the health service, the roads infrastructure, the public transport system and the 101 other areas of neglect that bedevil this little country of ours. It is not. What this is intended to achieve is to focus minds on the loss to Ireland and to the IRFU because we still have no stadium.