Indoor-arena issue still getting runaround

On Athletics:The incredible dumbness of our quest to build an indoor running arena is a subject I thought was exhausted a long time ago - but let's hit it one more time, just for the fun of it. Be warned: it involves lots of political gobbledegook.

Inevitably it begins over two decades ago, when in 1987 the then Taoiseach, the late Charles Haughey, staged a press conference at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, surrounded, I'm told, by most of his cabinet. With typical pomp, Haughey unveiled the Government's long-promised plan for a National Indoor Arena, which after a feasibility study costing well over one million of our dear old punts was finally approved for the Dublin docklands.

Although I wasn't there, my father was, and overcome with a sense of déjà vu, he stood up in front of the assembly to ask whether he'd see this arena in his lifetime, to which Haughey cynically replied: "How old are you, young man?" - prompting all-round laughter.

My father is not a young man anymore, although unlike Haughey, he is still hoping to be around to see this arena in his lifetime.

Despite Ireland's remarkable indoor running tradition - from Ronnie Delany to Eamonn Coghlan right up to present champions David Gillick and Derval O'Rourke - the Government's undertaking to build an indoor running arena remains an abject failure.

It always seems churlish to be criticising sporting facilities given the similar shortcomings in health and education, but this particular subject remains a national disgrace.

I thought I had witnessed the most assuring promise so far in 1999 when attending a press conference in Santry, where Jim McDaid, then Minister for Sport, unveiled the latest plan for an indoor running arena, to be built adjacent to the Morton Stadium in Santry.

McDaid said the indoor arena "signalled its (the Government's) commitment to the development of sport and recreational facilities", and in his speech on the 1999 Budget, he said such an indoor facility was "prioritised in the recently published review of the Government's Action Programme for the Millennium".

In 2000 McDaid reiterated that promise in his end-of-year statement, which he had entitled a Remarkable Year In Implementation Of Sport Policy, by referring to the £36 million allocated under the Sport Capital Programme, and highlighting the "£4.8 million towards the provision of a national indoor athletic training facility at Morton Stadium, to complement the existing outdoor athletics stadium".

As anyone who lives around Santry could tell you, the arena was never built, and instead became another Government fiasco: Fingal County Council agreed to make a site available free of charge and commissioned a feasibility study, the results of which were subsequently examined and accepted by the Department and the Irish Sports Council.

In July 2000, the capital grant of £4.8 million was announced towards the overall cost of the proposed facility.

However, the Department never agreed a payment schedule of funding or ever gave sanction to accept tenders - and no work on the facility was ever undertaken.

What happened instead was that everyone in the Department of Sport was working off a new buzzword: Abbotstown.

From early on this came with the assurance of an indoor facility, although by 2004, then Minister for Sport John O'Donoghue, speaking at a conference on sport and leisure facilities, said Abbotstown "might also include medical and training support for elite-athlete development and, eventually, an indoor sporting arena".

Once more, the building of an indoor running arena was now a fading light in the tunnel, rather than an approaching one.

Throughout this period the only indoor facility available in the country was that belonging to Nenagh Athletic Club, which, to its credit, became a valuable resource for training and competition.

The problem with Nenagh - besides its hayshed appearance - is that it was never intended as a national indoor arena, lacking the necessary heating and spectator facilities. Yet through Government default that's exactly what it became.

Nenagh is now sorely outdated, and so the National indoor athletics championships take place this weekend at the temporary running facility available at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, promoted by the Northern Ireland Athletics Federation.

In other words, Athletics Ireland doesn't have the facility to promote their own championships, and it's no surprise that most of the leading athletes aren't competing.

The three vested interests in this subject are the Government, the Irish Sports Council and Athletics Ireland - and you'd expect one of them to have some idea of where, when or how an indoor running arena is to be built, if indeed ever.

Well, representatives of all three were present at Thursday's announcement of €11.91 million in funding to run the governing bodies of sport.

"We thrashed out a policy, that wants to see an indoor arena built as quickly as possible, and that our preferred site was for a university," said Brendan Hackett, chief executive of Athletics Ireland. "That would ensure maximum use.

"We've been seeking a meeting with the Minister, to drive that home and say here is what we want. We've been very public on where our thinking is. I know two universities already have sites, have plans, and if they get an indication from Government they're ready to go."

So what will be the Minister's indication?

"I can't really update you on that. I know it's with the Sports Council at this point . . . " said Brennan, who then turned toward his aides for advice.

Brennan comes across as a caring and considerate man, but he appeared positively clueless on the subject.

"Yeah, we don't have a proposal from them. What I'm being advised is that we don't have a proposal from them . . . So we're having discussions with them. But we've no proposal in yet."

Okay, so what does the Irish Sports Council have to say on the proposal?

"Well you'll probably want to talk to Brendan Hackett on that," said John Treacy, their chief executive. "But I know there are plans afoot to do something fairly soon.

"And it would be very welcome. I think it's probably the one area we should, probably, be doing something on, is indoor training facilities particularly.

"I would feel strongly on that. I know Athletics Ireland have been in discussions with the department on this particular issue. And hopefully something will happen shortly."

So something will happen shortly.

You didn't hear that here first.