RUGBY:Amid a growing sense of frustration within IRFU and FAI circles, the vexed issue of a national stadium or redeveloping Lansdowne Road appears to be no nearer a conclusion.

The Minister for Sport, John O'Donoghue, yesterday confirmed his Department had received the latest feasibility study into the issue, from the Office of Public Works, only last Friday, and that his Department, in turn, is preparing a memorandum to be put to the Government on the various proposals "in the very near future".

The Minister was in Lansdowne Road to announce a €3.5 million Irish Sports Council (ISC) grant to the IRFU for programmes designed to increase participation in the game at all levels. This latest grant brings to €7.9 million allocated to the union by the ISC since the introduction of the special budget measure for the encouragement of greater underage participation in the three major field sports.

While Minister O'Donoghue again conceded that Lansdowne Road was not suitable for staging major international sporting events in either rugby or football, he was unable to say when the Government would decide on redeveloping the ground or constructing a new stadium in Abbotstown.

It is now almost five years - October 13th, 1998 - since the Fianna Fail-Progressive Democrats coalition announced it was conducting a feasibility study into building an 80,000-seat stadium for all field sports, after which plans for the construction of a stadium in Abbotstown were announced in January 2000. It has also been four months since the IRFU and FAI jointly met a five-week Government deadline to present their own feasibility study into this project.

The Arup report concluded that, of the five possibilities, the most viable alternatives were Abbotstown or Lansdowne Road, thereby ruling out the inner city option of the Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend, the Sillogue site in Ballymun and the IRFU-owned site in Newlands Cross. The OPW report, revealed the Minister, confirmed that these two remained the most viable options.

The estimated cost of the Lansdowne Road redevelopment was put at €450 million, with Abbotstown at €495 million. The IRFU and the FAI could contribute €118 million, helped by advance sales of tickets and corporate boxes, while it is believed JP McManus' donation of €63 million is sitting in a Swiss bank account until December 31st, 2008.

The Department in turn conducted its report into the Arup report, and the Minister yesterday said: "I just recently received the report from the Office of Public Works looking into the Arup report, and at the present time the Department is examining that report and we are preparing a memorandum for the Government where we will put forward the various options which are open to the Government in relation to the possibility of providing a new stadium in the country.

"I'm not going to put forward just one proposal, I'm going to put forward a number of proposals and the Government will have a number of options as to how we should proceed from here.

"It would be quite wrong of me to pre-empt what the Government might or might not do, but of one thing I am certain, this country needs a new stadium.

"Ireland has a pivotal position in the rugby world, and has had for a very long time, and increasingly Ireland is holding a very high ranking in the soccer world. In those circumstances I think everybody is agreed that it's not appropriate to be hosting major international games in a stadium which had outlived its age. It has many happy memories for many, many people, but the truth of the matter is that when one compares even club stadia in Britain, you can see the inadequacies (of Lansdowne Road)."

Despite the Minister's support for the project, and even though the current Programme for Government, as agreed by Fianna Fail and the PDs, clearly states that "we will start work on the completion of a world-class stadium", the feeling persists that the reluctance of the junior coalition partner to sanction a redeveloped Lansdowne Road or a stadium in Abbotstown remains the greatest stumbling block to the project.

When asked whether this project had become more of a political issue than a sporting issue, the Minister responded: "I'm not really going to go into that, but I would certainly hope that when we are making the decision in relation to the provision of a national stadium that the decision is made on the basis of a sporting requirement, and that politics are left to one side.

"I don't think it is in the interests of the Irish sporting public that politics would interfere with the decision. I think everybody should approach this issue with an open mind with the overall good of Irish sport at the forefront of their minds."

All the while, the hoary chestnut of the GAA opening its doors at Croke Park to rugby and soccer remains open to conjecture. Minister O'Donoghue confirmed that he would be meeting the GAA president, Seán Kelly, soon. Such is commercial reality that the GAA, he said, would "have to look at their position and decide whether it really is tenable to continue closing Croke Park to other codes."

But he also conceded that it is not for him to tell the GAA what to do, and that "opening Croke Park to other codes need not necessarily be the answer, desirable though that is."

Waiting in the wings are the FAI and the IRFU, whose chief executive, Philip Browne, maintained that until the Government made a decision one way or the other the union's hands are tied.

While stating that this Minister for Sport "has very good intentions" and that this Government has "done more for sport than any other Government", Browne added: "The answer lies within Government circles. We've co-operated as fully as we can, and ultimately what we need is clarity. Because if you don't have clarity you can't plan.

"We are reluctant to make capital investments at the moment because we don't know what we're going to need our capital for, be it redeveloping Lansdowne Road or a national stadium somewhere else. If we get it wrong we could end up with nothing, and at the moment we're in a vacuum which creates a financial limbo and a planning limbo."

As regards recent reports regarding the unlikely prospect of Croke Park staging rugby internationals for a whole host of logistical reasons, not least ratification from the GAA, fixture clashes, floodlighting, pitch size etc, Browne commented: "We have a good working relationship with the operational side of Croke Park. We share information on the running of a stadium. But we have had no dialogue, and there is no dialogue planned, with the GAA at the moment."