In a couple of weeks the results of an international competition aimed at developing an architectural framework plan for Sports Campus Ireland will be announced.
When that plan becomes public, people will be able to see the outline of a project designed to benefit the entire community. It will set out a practical, achievable and affordable vision of sport that is unique in our history.
The framework plan will demonstrate how it is possible to build facilities for sports as diverse as swimming, tennis, golf, basketball, soccer, Gaelic games, rugby, badminton, special Olympic and paralympic sports.
It will show how people can participate in all those sports at a variety of levels, and enjoy them as spectators. It will show how it is possible to support all those facilities with science, medical treatment and headquarters centres.
It will also show how this can be integrated in a parkland environment that supports and belongs to the wider community, and that will promote healthier lifestyles and living. It will show how traffic difficulties can be addressed to make the environment an asset for the local and national community.
We will also be able to show the progress made on the development of a national aquatic centre, containing a 50-metre Olympic standard pool and a range of leisure facilities.
I wish we could show the pictures now that will go with these developments. This is impossible because everything we do must be the subject of accountable tendering competitions, and until they have been completed, preferred bidders cannot be announced.
But when we can show the bigger picture, people will no longer be able, I believe, to talk about this project as if it consisted of a stadium and nothing else.
Sports Campus Ireland is a challenging and wide-ranging project. The stadium element represents less than half the project, around 40 per cent in total cash terms. The other elements will reinforce Ireland's standing as a significant sporting location, giving us the chance to attract international competition in dozens of sports, organise national and regional competitions in state-of-the-art facilities, and provide sporting back-up facilities of the highest quality to every sports organisation in the country.
The question I am most often asked is: "When will it be ready?" But there are other equally legitimate questions to which the public deserves an answer. The three that occur to me are these:
Should we be doing it? Can we afford it? And how much will it cost?
Before I answer these, let me say that Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Ltd has been given a job by the Government. That job has included developing strong and good relationships with every sporting body in Ireland. We have tried to do that in an honest and open way.
We have no interest, for instance, in trying to stop anyone else's project, as the chief executive of the FAI has suggested. Of course, we want to see soccer in Stadium Ireland, and we believe it would be hugely to the FAI's advantage. We want to see soccer thrive and prosper in Ireland, along with all the other sports. We wish the FAI well, and always have.
Should we be doing it? Of course, it is possible to argue that we do not need better national sporting facilities. In a sense, if you do not believe in the value of sport, you're never going to accept that any investment we make in sport has real and lasting value.
But throughout most of our history, we have loved sport and have given it an honourable place. Our folk memory is made up of great sporting moments that rank alongside great battles and great heroes and heroines.
The only thing we've never done is invest wholeheartedly in it. Now, in a variety of different ways, we are. The investment made by Minister for Sport, Dr McDaid, is far higher than before. Long-standing problems and shortcomings are being addressed. We are investing in coaching and training standards. We are investing in national facilities, and we want them to be the best possible.
So, of course, we should do it, in exactly the same way as Australia was right to believe that it could put the best facilities in the world in place, and that it could hold its head high among the most competitive nations.
Can we afford it? People who argue that we should abandon Sports Campus Ireland in favour of other expenditure are asking us to make a false choice. Nobody, I believe, can honestly point to a single investment choice that will have to be postponed or cancelled because of the development of Sports Campus Ireland.
The truth is we can afford the once-off investment without asking anyone to make a sacrifice in the quality of their lives. In fact, this investment will enhance the nation's quality of life. As Ireland can afford it now, it means we won't have to ask sporting organisations to mortgage their futures to have a home they would be proud to call their own.
How much will it cost? I want to give a detailed and considered answer to this question. I hope those who use figures like a billion or 1-1/2 billion will stop and think about my answer.
When I appeared before the Joint Committee on Tourism, Sport and Recreation, I mistakenly used the figure of £281 million as the cost of the stadium, when the correct figure was and remains £230 million.
Unfortunately, this figure carried through in briefing material used by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Sport on subsequent occasions in the Dail. I have written to the chairman of the Joint Committee and to the Taoiseach and the Minister apologising for the mistake. I understand they will correct the Dail record on foot of that.
The £281 million used by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, whom we commissioned to do a feasibility study for a National Stadium in 1999, combined the £230 million for Stadium Ireland and an initial guideline cost of £51 million for a campus of sporting excellence.
I was making two points to the joint committee: the stadium cost had not changed, but the campus cost had.
On the basis of further work by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and professional estimates for the commercial facilities planned, I am satisfied a sound estimate of the cost of the campus (excluding the stadium) is £320 million. When added to £230 million for Stadium Ireland, this gives a total cost of £550 million, the figure I gave to the joint committee last September.
In putting the various facilities to public tender - and when we go to tender we will be seeking bids for a variety of models - we decided to establish the potential for completing as much of this project as possible on a public-private partnership basis.
This was to attract private investment and minimise the exposure of the taxpayer. We believe the private sector will be prepared to invest £150 million in the project, mostly for commercial facilities. When we count that and the donation of £50 million from J.P. McManus, we arrive at a figure of £350 million for Exchequer investment in Sports Campus Ireland, including Stadium Ireland.
Because all facilities will go out to public tender, and be the subject of an international commercial competition, and because we want to attract the best and most competitive bids, I cannot at this stage publish the detailed elements of the proposed investment.
When the tender competitions are over around the middle of the year, we will know the value of each contract and will be able to move from "best estimates" to contracted figures.
The costs associated with much-needed traffic solutions for Blanchardstown, one of the fastest-growing urban areas in Europe, and the cost of providing state-of-the-art national laboratories, so important when consumer confidence is low, are investments which would be necessary even if Sports Campus Ireland were never built.
When will it be ready? Our plans are that the aquatic and leisure centre will be completed by the end of 2002, in good time for the Special Olympics in the summer of 2003, and that the full campus will be completed before the end of 2005.
We believe a campus of the highest possible quality should, can and will be built on this basis, and the result will be a significant improvement in Ireland's quality of life.
Paddy Teahon is chairman of Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Ltd