The Minister for Tourism and Sport has said next year's three Tour de France stages will be worth at least £20-30 million to this State. Dr McDaid said television coverage of the event in more than 160 countries would mean that 950 million people around the world would have "a grandstand view of Ireland and what it has to offer".
He was speaking at the launch of the Tour de France in front of 2,000 journalists, politicians, sponsors and cyclists at the Palais des Congres in Paris yesterday.
The Tour - the world's largest annual sporting event - begins on July 11th with a 5.7 kilometre "prologue" time-trial around the streets of central Dublin. On July 12th, the first stage proper will go down the east coast to Arklow and return to the Phoenix Park via the Wicklow mountains.
The second stage, the following day, will begin at Enniscorthy - a gesture to mark the 200th anniversary of the 1798 rebellion and its French links - and go via Waterford, Carrick-on-Suir and Dungarvan to Cork.
In a massive logistical exercise, three specially-commissioned Stena Sealink ships will then take 2,000 team and race officials and followers, along with 1,000 journalists, to Roscoff. There they will rejoin the 200 competitors - who will have flown into Brest the previous night - for the third stage through Brittany, the first on French soil.
The tour's director, Mr JeanMarie Leblanc, said the tour had faced the problem this year of a clash on July 12th with the soccer World Cup final in Paris. However, "Ireland opened its arms - and we seized them".
Yesterday's launch had a strong Irish flavour, with a Paris-based traditional music trio opening the event, followed by a group of "Riverdancers" called "Celtic Feet", and a Bord Failte video complete with Stephen Roche, Sean Kelly and the Schull dog races.
Dr McDaid, speaking with warmth and emotion, said it was "difficult to describe just how proud and honoured Ireland is to host `Le Grand Depart' - the start of the 1998 Tour de France". He quoted an 18th century Irish revolutionary ballad in which the singer urges his fellow Irishmen and Irishwomen to liberate themselves and to establish "the laws of France".
"The ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity were a source of inspiration to our people in those troubled times. Our warm regard for `La Belle France' continues in these days of European Union."
He promised Ireland would "not be found lacking" in the huge task of organising the Tour in Ireland, and promised that for its three days next July "Ireland will become one huge party, and in Ireland we know how to party".
Mr Leblanc paid tribute to the "major contribution" played by Irish riders in the Tour. This was one of the reasons Dublin - Stephen Roche and Martin Earley's home town - would become only the third European capital in the 95-year history of France's defining sporting and cultural event to host "Le Grand Depart".
The Tour will also pass through Bray, the home town of Shay Elliott, the first English-speaking rider to wear the leader's yellow jersey in 1963; and Carrick-onSuir, the home of Sean Kelly, who in the 1980s won the green jersey for the highest points classification a record four times.
Mr Leblanch also paid tribute to Mr Pat McQuaid, president of the Federation of Irish Cyclists, as the man who did most to bring the Tour to Ireland. "It's like a dream come true," said Stephen Roche. "If you'd told me even 10 years ago, the year I won the Tour, the Giro d'Italia and the world championship, that it would come to Ireland, I would have said you were crazy."