Madam, - After reading Tom Humphries's sneering article about the possibility of a Dublin bid to host the Olympic Games (LockerRoom, January 19th), I feel he was wise not to debate the matter with Gay Mitchell on Today FM as he would have made a fool of himself.
Why does Mr Humphries continually personalise this to Gay Mitchell? Does he not know that Tony O'Reilly, the late Noel Carroll, Jim McCarthy and a who's who of business and sport personalities were in favour of a Dublin Olympic bid? The architects Richard Hurley and Associates designed an Olympic Village that would fit into a corner of the Dublin Docks.
The international chartered quantity surveyors PKS costed this and PriceWaterhouse, as it was then called, published a feasibility study stating that Dublin could make a credible bid. Furthermore, Coopers and Lybrand, again at the instigation of Gay Mitchell, compiled a report on the feasibility of bringing all other international sporting events to Dublin, such as the European and World Championships, and the Tour de France, which subsequently came here.
Gay Mitchell put all of this together. What have the knockers done beyond recycling cynicism? If Dublin did bid for the Olympics it would, in effect, be an Ireland, probably an All-Ireland, bid. I happen to know that this was raised with Gay Mitchell when he was a Minister by a senior official in Northern Ireland. When Manchester bid, Pwllheli in Wales was part of the bid. They didn't get the Olympics but they did get the Commonwealth Games.
Helsinki hosted the Olympics in 1952 when it wasn't even profitable to do so. The population of Helsinki is 559,716 (2002/2003). It is now profitable to run the Olympics and all the empirical evidence shows that a credible Dublin bid is possible. Given that the 2004 Games are in Athens and the 2008 Games are in Beijing, it seems likely that the 2012 Games will go to the Americas or Africa.
2016 would seem a real possibility for Europe again. This happens to be the 100th anniversary of the Rising here. The Hurley design provided for an Olympic Village which would later convert into a science park. It would be possible to design a sports village which would later convert into a real living village with housing, etc. This is he sort of thinking we need.
If Tom Humphries wants to involve himself in politics or in a duel with Gay Mitchell, he might at least be man enough to do it face to face. There is something seriously wrong when a well thought-out, costed, empirical study supported by many leading business and sports personalities does not get the level of analysis and consideration it should from our media. We have a lot of growing up to do. - Yours, etc.,
Cllr ANN MARIE MARTIN, Members' Room, City Hall, Dublin 2.