Sean C

Yes fantastic, just what Ireland needs and I emphasise the word “Ireland”, not Dublin. How can it be justifed locating this development in Dublin yet again. It already has Croke Park, Home of Irish Gaelic Games, which is been redeveloped at much cost into a 80,000 all seater stadium, Landsdowne Road, Home of Irish Rugby, a large capacity stadium which will without doubt be redeveloped in the near future, Dalymount Park which I believe is been redeveloped and Tolka Park a small yet reasonably well seated stadium, the latter two been average sports stadia but still much better than any stadium you will find anywhere else throughout Ireland. And now in the same city “another” 80,000 all seater stadium to be home to Irish Athletics and Irish Soccer, a 50 metre pool, home to Irish Swimming and also a “smaller” 15,000 all seater arena, much more than any other part of Ireland has, oh and I almost forgot, a Veladrome?, easy to get confused as there cannot be another city of this size in the world, Capital or not, with this amount of venues. People in Ireland really need to realise that Dublin by world standards is a “small” city. Here in Wales when they decided to redevelop the Arms Park into a 72,500 all seater stadium which would be home to both the Welsh Rugby and Soccer Associations they had to knock down the much loved Olympic sized swimming pool. They decided that the peplacement should be built in Swansea, Wales second city along with the announcement that the new Welsh Rugby Academy would be developed in Newport, Wales third city. They stated the reason for these different locations was “It would be unfair to locate all of these within one city espically Cardiff as it already had the newly redeveloped Arms Park and was the home to the Welsh Assembly”. This is nothing special or different it is called “common sense”, looking after the Country of Wales not just its capital, been fair, not forcing people outside of Cardiff to have to commute whenever they want to attend eg; a sporting events, people from Cardiff also have to commute to other parts of Wales. It makes for a much more interesting and diverse country when you have a few “Modern and well developed” cities. Remember people in Cork, Limerick, Galway and everywhere else throughout Ireland “all” pay the same taxes, thus they should get treated equally. How would the people of Dublin feel if they saw all there taxes been spent on new developments in let’s say Limerick City, and Dublin was left crumbling, I should expect they would not be very happy at all. Well this is excatley what is happening to the rest if Ireland. How can anyone justify this espically when the economy is doing so well. The word Capital does not mean “the right to have everything”. It would also be of benefit to Dublin, not just the rest of Ireland if a programme of Decentralisation was begun. Take a look at New Zealand for example. Population is just under three and a half million, smaller than the Republics, it’s largest city is Auckland with a population of approx one million. It’s second city is Wellington also the capital which has a population of approx 800,000 and Christchurch it’s third city which has a population of approx 500,000. When the national sport of Rugby is played they travel throughout the country bringing the sport “to the people”. They are able to do this by developing modern stadia in all the main population centres. Ireland really neesds to wake up to this problem quick for the benefit of the country as a whole. Let’s begin with the construction of a new capital and a new form of Federal Government.