If on the same site as the proposed Bowl etc., they were to put the 1 Billion pounds into developing a new town with possibly accommadation for between 10-20 thousand people, Ireland would reap by far more benefits than if the Stadium were to be built.
The biggest Crisus in Ireland isn't the lack of a stadium, rather it's the Crisus in Housing Supply.

The stadium doesn't cost 1 billion, the entire campus costs that (allegedly). The stadium would cost in the region of €300m I would think, and would have large spin-off benefits to the economy. Isn't there enough traffic on the M50 already without building entire towns along it. Whats needed is higher density housing in existing residential areas, not creating entirely new towns within the city. And how would building a town on the site benefit the whole country?

just for proper comparison sake, the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff is located in Cardiff city centre and is 2-300m down the street from Cardiff's main train station and bus station. and of course, it can count on its huge (population) neighbour England to attend games i.e. arrive by train and bus (there is also a civic/ adminsitrative district area within walking distance of the city centre where dozens of coaches park for the really big events).
Of course this can mean that you can get an influx of 'yobbos' coming into the city but i only saw problems like that twice in my year there.

Two things...

Liverpool FC (the world's greatest football club) are about to build a brand new all seater 55,000 stadium for 70 million sterling..... even they balked at building a 75,000 seater and they could have filled it at least 20 times a season, probably 30 (including Champions League and various cup games).... but they didn't want the debt...
see for pictures: [url="http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N135043020517-1147.htm"]http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N135043020517-1147.htm[/url]


Also are regards Cardiff, every time there is soccer played there, there are massive congestion problems, the first few games had massive traffic tailbacks on routes in with people having to abandon their cars and start walking to get to the stadium on time, abandoned cars made the problem worse....

[This message has been edited by Paul Clerkin (edited 22 May 2002).]

Very thought provoking, Paul. If Liverpool can build it so cheaply, why can't we?
I bet that's the solution Bertie and the PDs hammer out when they hop back into bed together. A 55,000 seater stadium, costing no more than 250,000 euro. No tennis courts, no golf academy, no centres of sporting excellence. Just a stadium. What a shame they knobbled the FAI's Eircom Park - it would have been nearly built by now.

What's in the 70 mil stirling? Land cost? Fittings & equipment? Design fees? Financing charges? Construction cost only? Can stadium accomodate rugby? This is a suspiciously low number.

The Liverpool design takes the UK cheap stadium approach of separating each stand, no way to circulate around stadium within the stadium. This kind of stadium has a very different feel from a full surround. The need for segregation of supporters is not such an issue here.

Word of caution: a national stadium has requirements that a football club stadium doesn't, especially one to take both soccer and rugby.

£70 million sounds very low alright. Remember Eircom Park? Originally it was to cost no more than £65m, and that was set in stone. Soon after the price inevitably doubled to a much more realistic level. The cost of these things is nearly always under-stated in the plans. The stadium in Wales was to have cost £125m but ended up costing £200m.

It seems though that with Stadium Ireland we are doing the opposite, finding the highest price possible and then working our way back from that. £1 billion is a nice round figure isn't it? Never mind that thats the over-stated figure for the entire campus not just the stadium. Convenient that some anti-stadium people use that figure as the cost of the stadium alone. 300m euro is a much more realistic price tag for a 65k all-seater stadium.

A thought just struck me on the way home last night - How much did the Government give to the GAA to rebuild Croke Park? I think it was at least £150m - correct me if I'm wrong - Hows about this for an idea give the same amount to the FAI and the IRFU to develop/redevelop there own stadia. Indeed the govenment could assist them in any way possible (PP, project management etc) then everyone would be happy at the cost of £300m. The cost could be borne out through tax incentives and 0% interest loans from the government (and National Lottery) to these organisations. You may even save money by using (near to)duplicate plans for the stadia. Lansdowne Road is a perfect site for a Rugby stadium in terms of transportation links. How about using the underutilised St Anne Park Raheney as a site for the soccer stadium (run a small spur off the Dart line and you're there).

Any thoughts?

[This message has been edited by Rory W (edited 23 May 2002).]

i think you have your hand in this one too dermot

Frank MacDonalds idea is very good. Building a stadium at the Ringsend bottle plant. The site is twice the size of Lansdowne and is set in a triangle of sport projects in the area. Irishtown Stadium and Sean Moore park. It is ideally situated at the east link and a couple of minutes drive from the port tunnel and about the same distance from the city centre as Lansdowne Road. It is close to the following DART stations: Barrow Street, Lansdowne, Pearse, Tara and Connolly. It is close to the developing Dockland and ferry terminals in Dublin Port. The only problem is bus services but there would probably bus links created if it was built.

Who's dermot?

from sky news regarding a new stadium at wembley which will be ready by "2005" ...

"Mr Crozier revealed that the new stadium itself would cost £358million, although other costs such as local infrastructure and parking areas will push the price higher."

sounds like a realistic figure for Stadium Ireland too (just the stadium that is as thats probably all we'll be getting in the end)

Wembley is 90,000 seats and has to include athletics conversion too. We will know in the next few days the capacity for the Bertie Bowl, but certainly much less than Wembley.

That's in sterling folks so that makes it €586 million which makes it a bit on the pricey side

i just saw a thing on the telly. It was about the stadiums for the world cup .... they were only required to have eight stadiums between them (korea and Japan) but they've actually built ten EACH excluding the ones they already had.
One i thought was pretty amazing ... the pitch actually resides outside the roofed over stadium in order to get the best of the sun and weather.... its then rolled into place and can even be rotated to a different orientation while in there.
Yes theyve got loads of money to do these things.. but doesnt it put the big squables over stadiums here into perspective ?

Don't all the stadia in both Japan and Korea look magnificent...including the pitches which have the quality of a bowling green.....they've done a wonderful job at providing top notch facilities.......

Come on IRELAND...up the Republic....
Erin go Bragh!

My main point of contention is that the Koreans have built excellent stadia for $180 million each and we are looking at 2 to 3 times that for ours. I would just like to know why such a large difference in cost!

The £1 billion cost for the Stadium Ireland project was very significantly exaggerated in the first place.
And it must be remembered includes the relocation of the State Laboratories, estimated at £140 million plus, the redevelopment of the existing infrastructure, the provision of a rail station at Abbotstown on the existing Maynooth train link, a 50-metre swimming pool, landscaped gardens over a vast area, huge amounts of office space and so on ad nauseum. The stadium itself would cost nowhere near the magical figures being put across by both the newspapers and opposition parties.
Also, most of the stadia in the Far East are of capacity between 40,000 to 60,000. The cost rises exponentially according to size and Stadium Ireland was supposed to be 80,000 though that will almost certainly be scaled down very significantly as part of the FF/PD negotiations.
I'd also be curious to know how much difference our inflated construction costs would make. I'm almost sure it would be cheaper to build a major project in Korea, but doubt that this would be the case in Japan.
I think crucially it is worth remembering that the stadium itself has never been put out to tender. There is no design, only a concept picture used by the management company. The tendering process would be the only true indicator of what we are actually talking about in terms of cost.

Seoul is a funny city, there is lots of very impressive infra-structure, metro, stadiums, parks, art galleries, stuff you'd expect in a city of 10 million people but impressive because it has happened so quickly and so much was destroyed in the war. On the other hand there is little sign of planning. Most of the city is very homogenous, millions of empty bars, identical shops and cheap low-rise apartment blocks in bad condition. It is fun to visit because virtually everyone is 24 and it is filled with neon, the way the Korean district in NY is, but we shouldn't feel to bad comparing ourselves to them, they are struggling with similar problems, maybe with more money and bigger challenges, but they seem to be having the same mixture of success and failure.