The Taoiseach will this morning move a step closer to realising his ambitions for a £200 million national sports stadium in Dublin.
Mr Ahern will publicly present a feasibility study of the plan for an 80,000-seat stadium, at Abbotstown in Dublin, in a move designed to underline his personal backing for the project. Ministers agreed yesterday that the report should be published, although the Cabinet has yet to approve the stadium plan.
In the report by management consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers, the cost of the stadium is put at at least £200 million. Funding is expected to come from the private sector as well as the State; the businessman Mr J.P. McManus is reported to have offered a £50 million donation towards the project.
Some political observers say Mr Ahern hopes the stadium will be one of the great achievements of his term as Taoiseach. On State-owned land near the M50, it would be close to the railway linking the city to the west, greatly boosting its prospects.
Were the stadium to go ahead, it would be in competition with the privately financed £65 million FAI project for a 45,000-seat roofed arena at CityWest in Co Dublin. It will also be competing with GAA plans for a £150 million expansion at Croke Park.
Mr Ahern is determined to proceed with the project despite fears that if the other developments were built, the Abbotstown stadium could end up an expensive "white elephant". Last year the Minister for Sport, Dr McDaid, said he told the FAI £11 million could be available for ground improvements at clubs across the State, if it dropped its plan for the CityWest stadium.
A draft report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, details of which were published in a newspaper last October, said the Abbotstown stadium at an operational level would not be in a position to "cover debt-servicing charges associated with the required capital expenditure". It said that, based on six sporting events annually, four international rugby games and two games agreed by the GAA, the stadium would not carry the potential to service any meaningful level of debt.