The Abbotstown plan is bound to figure in negotiations between Fianna Fáil and the PDs, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
EVERYONE knows what the Progressive Democrats' Mr Michael McDowell, the newly-elected TD for Dublin South East, thinks about Sports Campus Ireland.
He grabbed front-page headlines for branding the so-called Campus of Sporting Excellence planned for Abbotstown as "a Ceaucescu-era Olympic project".
Less colourfully, the Progressive Democrats have also made it clear that they are opposed to any sports campus costing €1 billion or more. What they favour is a more modest stand-alone stadium, preferably achieved by redeveloping Lansdowne Road.
Fianna Fáil, not surprisingly, pledged during the election campaign to start work on the construction of a "world-class" national stadium at Abbotstown, although its manifesto did not mention Sports Campus Ireland - merely the development of an unspecified range of "other top-class facilities".
The key issue for the PDs is the extent of Exchequer exposure.The party might well go along with a scaled-down stadium at Abbotstown, providing it doesn't cost too much. The question of location is seen as a secondary, less politically sensitive, issue.
However, Abbotstown only makes sense in planning terms if all of the facilities envisaged for Sports Campus Ireland materialise - the 15,000-seat indoor arena, velodrome, golf academy, sports halls, outdoor pitches, sports science centre and all the rest of it.
The argument used by apologists for Abbotstown is that only a site of its size - 500 acres - would be sufficient to generate the critical mass required by a full-blown sports campus. But if it ends up with just an aquatic centre and scaled-down stadium, this argument falls.
So what is the fall-back position? Redeveloping Lansdowne Road to provide a modern stadium with a capacity of 60,000 to 65,000 is the most obvious one.
Its great advantage is accessibility; unlike Abbotstown, it is within walking distance of the city centre.
Lansdowne Road occupies a site of 12.6 acres in Ballsbridge, with the DART line running underneath its west stand.
The area includes the existing stadium as well as a pitch immediately adjoining it to the east, which would have to be incorporated into a new stadium.
This would involve changing the axis from north-south to east-west, primarily to increase its capacity from a maximum 50,000 (with nearly half of the crowd standing) to the desired level of 60,000 to 65,000 (all seated). Obviously, the existing facilities would have to be demolished.
A statement issued on May 3rd by the FAI and IRFU said that while Lansdowne Road had "served rugby and soccer well over the years and still provides an atmosphere second to none", it was inadequate as a stadium for the 21st century.
"In these circumstances, the FAI and IRFU are committed to the proposal to build a National Stadium. It will provide modern stadium facilities with the capacity to satisfy the needs and expectations of the soccer and rugby public and visiting overseas supporters".
The statement noted that the IRFU had investigated the possibility of a modern stadium facility at Lansdowne Road with a capacity of 60,000, but said the advice it had received "suggests that a greenfield situation is a more practicable option". End of story, or is it?
Asked for a copy of the report on which the advice was based, an IRFU spokesman said it was a "private document". All he would say was that it had been compiled in 1996 by HOK (Helmuth Obata Kassebaum), US architects specialising in sports facilities.
The spokesman was not prepared to explain why they concluded redeveloping Lansdowne Road was less feasible than moving to a greenfield site, other than saying that there were "planning constraints" in terms of likely objections from local residents.
It is worth noting, however, that the confidential HOK report came five years after the IRFU had acquired a 70-acre greenfield site near Newlands Cross - including the home of writer Katherine Tynan - and one of the options was to develop a new rugby stadium there. Under such a scenario, Lansdowne Road would have been sold for property development, netting the already cash-rich IRFU as much as €60 million at current market values. That might still be an option, given that it has become one of the Bertie Bowl's "anchor tenants".
Certainly, Mr Paddy Teahon, former chairman of Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Ltd - the company in charge of the Abbotstown project - has said that no more rugby internationals would be played at Lansdowne Road after the national stadium is built. Yet, as the IRFU and the FAI have conceded, it "still provides an atmosphere second to none" for rugby and soccer internationals. If they decamp to Abbotstown, the unique atmosphere that permeates the city on rugby weekends, in particular, would be lost.
There is another option which has just arisen as a result of the closure by Ardagh plc of the Irish Glass Bottle Company plant in Ringsend. This occupies a site of 24 acres, which is nearly double the area of Lansdowne Road and, therefore, would not be so constrained a site.
There is also a precedent. Last week, Liverpool Football Club announced that it intends to abandon its historic Anfield ground in favour of building a new 55,000-seat stadium on a nearby site at a bargain-basement estimated cost of £70 million.
In Dublin's case, it might also be possible to build a stadium on the cheap, though it would not be the "world-class" facility Fianna Fáil has promised. But whatever it costs, the most important thing is that it is built in the city rather than out on the edge of the M50.
Of course, the price is critical, given the current state of the Exchequer. Equally critical is where the money is spent - and Ms Harney should bear that in mind when she enters negotiations with Mr Ahern on the formation of the next government.