Dublin City Council - Providing Sporting Infrastructure?

[Jackass]

As a big sports fan, it amazes me that all through the boom years and even now, operating at a budget of almost €1billion, why have Dublin City Council never provided any sort of infrastructure to the city for multi-purpose, like concerts, sporting events, confrences etc. It always seems left up to the sports teams themselves to raise the Revenue and the council doesn't contribute anything....

Leinster rugby for example have been looking for a home for years, and on the back of the success of the team and rents being paid by the province, the RDS where they play their games have profited to such an extent that they are always able to upgrade the facilities and now look for a €18m development of the ground off the tennants of Leinster, why don't the council ever contribute something of this nature?

Examples of other places that have provided such a facility to their residents.

Swansea Council (23,000 stadium)



Cardiff City Council (28,000 stadium)



Paris City Council (20,000 stadium - to the right of the 50,000 capacity parc des princes)



These are just some examples of many, many examples all around the UK and Europe where city councils use the taxes collected to give something back to the people, including the services provided, infrastructure such as this.

Why is it that the GAA have to pay for all their own infrastructure (all be it with Government funds), Irish soccer teams have stadiums that are 100 years old and falling apart (5 of the 12 premier league teams in Ireland are based in Dublin), Leinster rugby, who enjoy average crowds of 20,000+ per game per season have to rely on the IRFU and FAI developing Lansdowne Road and renting a private shack of a stadium from the RDS, with the proceeds going to the society developing their privately owned facilities with no benefit to the wider community benefiting from the situation....

Is there any chance of the city council looking to be on a par with any other council in Europe, or is this just another example of the joke Ireland is and inability to provide services and infrastructure that are simple and straight forward anywhere else...

enda1

Why should local government provide the capital assets for private business?

[Jackass]

They're not provinding the capital assets of private business. They would be building a council owned facility that can be used for the entire community. The council would rent the facility to League of Ireland football teams, Leinster rugby, Dublin GAA, concert promotion companies, whoever, and make a reasonable profit in the process, thus making Dublin council a more sustainable entity, that actually makes money off a service, and benefits the wider community with a state of the art piece of public infrastructure whilst also providing a desperately needed piece of infrastructure in the city in the process, a municipal stadium of circa 20,000 capacity, instead of letting poor private owned facilities be used and eventually upgraded until it is no longer feasable to develop one...i.e. miss the boat as usual due to short sightedness and poor reasoning skills...

enda1

I don't see it within the council's interest or remit to property speculate and lease.

This seems to me to clearly be an issue of the private sector. It's very dangerous for public institutions to become asset heavy as assets have a maintenance cost associate with them, one best managed by the private sector with an eye on the bottom line.

Mr Simpson

Not DCC, but as far as I know SDCC own tallaght stadium and rent it to Shamrock Rovers

Gavin "shels"

Mr Simpson wrote: »

Not DCC, but as far as I know SDCC own tallaght stadium and rent it to Shamrock Rovers

That's true. In an ideal world, Bohs would get some deal with Fingal CC and Shels and Pats get deals with DCC.

superb choice of username

[Jackass] wrote: »

They're not provinding the capital assets of private business. They would be building a council owned facility that can be used for the entire community. The council would rent the facility to League of Ireland football teams, Leinster rugby, Dublin GAA, concert promotion companies, whoever, and make a reasonable profit in the process

The beauty of a free market. If you truly believe that it'd make a profit, you can do it.

Personally, I do not think the state should have any part in trying to own a stadium and run it - the state struggles to run a state, don't try to over complicate things by giving it more things to run!

Alias G

Municipal facilities tend to work out extremely well for both the local authority and the sporting public however. They are generally a win/win scenario.

artanevilla

A lot of the sporting clubs in Dublin are member owned, are there for members and the community as a whole to enjoy and are therefore not for profit, nobody gets a dividend as all profit would be reinvested back into the club.

I wouldn't see the council providing sports grounds for these types of organisations as them providing capital assets to private businesses, they'd be providing the community with a venue for sports, concerts other events etc, not for the profit of the individual. As long as of course, membership of the clubs is open to all.

hfallada

I know at lot of clubs when building all weather pitches in my area have got huge grants off the national lottery. Like I can't see the benefit of DCC of providing sports pitches or arenas when the private sector does it better and cheaper

dsmythy

Paris is massive and likely has a budget that dwarfs Dublin. Swansea and Cardiff both had teams with ambitions of playing in the Premier League to act as main tenants. You could have rugby as your main tenant but it's very liable to loss in popularity when bad runs come. If you want to spend on sports then the smaller things more widely spread are probably better.

[Jackass]

It's funny, was just looking at the attendances for the Irish national football team after seeing another empty stadium for a game this week. Interestingly, half of all the football games that have been played at the Aviva stadium would have fit into a 25,000 / 30,000 stadium in Dublin, presumably creating a much better atmosphere and occasion also.

Also saw that the FAI have used the RDS (18,500) for a few international games, as well as Thomond Park (26,000).

Got me thinking, it would be seriously useful to have a stadium of this size, FAI Cup finals would be around the right size, big League of Ireland games (big derbies and cup ties perhaps), annual football tournaments like the Carling Cup, Dublin GAA could use it for medium sized games such as in the league, and the GAA in general could use it for smaller All Ireland games, schools rugby finals in Dublin would be a great size, perfect size for professional sports team Leinster to use for all home games (excluding ones moved to Aviva) throughout the year. In off season it could be used for hosting concerts and family events organised by the council, conference facilities could be included.

It could also be used for one off events, such as big boxing events, perhaps a tennis tournament (similar to what was held in RDS many years ago, featuring John McEnroe), American sports on tour could be attracted to Dublin, such as American Football, Icehockey, Basketball, WWF, as well as equastrian events.

Ireland are also bidding for a rugby world cup (which is worth c. 300 million euro to local economy) and a stadium of this size would be a great addition to that bid, the FAI have made a bid to jointly host European Championships before, again worth a fortune and and this would strongly aid the bid.

I mean, for the public service it would provide, I think the investment would be more than worth it. Why can't state of the art major sporting and recreation facility such as this be provided?

Even if it was done through a public / private partnership, with Dublin Council, Lotto, National Government, and major associations such as IRFU, FAI, GAA all contribute.

anncoates

enda1 wrote: »

Why should local government provide the capital assets for private business?

Shamrock Rovers pay a large rent for Tallaght Stadium. It's a capital asset to the SDCC, not Rovers.

It's also rented out for other sports and events as well.

In addition, the footfall around Rovers games and stuff like the Leinster game generates lots of income for local businesses as well as a very positive community focus.

kylith

I would expect that it's because they can't see past the initial cost to build to the long term benefits from renting it out, and benefits to the community.

Victor

Would such a stadium be necessary, given the proliferation of other stadia? The real problem is that each code has it's own stadia that they only use for part of the year.

In fairness, if provincial rugby is profitable, why can't they provide their own or share with other organisations?

They do provide some such infrastructure, but at a local level, not provincial - there is a running track at Ringsend Park and a cycling track at Ceannt Park in Crumlin.

anncoates

Victor wrote: »

Would such a stadium be necessary, given the proliferation of other stadia? The real problem is that each code has it's own stadia that they only use for part of the year.

In fairness, if provincial rugby is profitable, why can't they provide their own or share with other organisations?

They do provide some such infrastructure, but at a local level, not provincial - there is a running track at Ringsend Park and a cycling track at Ceannt Park in Crumlin.

GAA can't share their grounds with other organizations unless it's an extraordinary temporary measure like opening up Croke Park?

A municipal stadium could be used by any code.

Thing is that the 2 showpiece stadia in Dublin - Corke Park and Landdowne - are too big for a lot of games held there. There would definitely be scope for holding matches of all codes in a modern stadium with a smaller capacity.

BTW: The only games that can't be accommodated in Tallaght are senior GAA because of the pitch dimensions (due to the size of the site and its boundaries) but football and rugby matches have been staged there.

I assume any hypothetical municipal stadium could be used by any sporting body that wanted it, as well as marquee sporting events, concerts and other fee-paying events.

Personally It would have been great if the DCC developed Dalymout Park as a 15 thousand seater ground as it's a historical sporting venue that has lapsed into a disgraceful state.

Obviously they can't now because of the current convoluted status of its ownership. It would have been perfect for matches of all codes that were a little too small for Corke Park and Landsdowne and you could put Bohs (and even Shels as well) in as paying anchor tenants and also run the odd concert there.

melekalikimaka

Victor wrote: »

In fairness, if provincial rugby is profitable, why can't they provide their own or share with other organisations?

The other provinces eact into Leinsters money, IRFU takes the guts of the money and splits it up so the weaker teams get to see some of the pot. Nice in theory, but Munster once carried the other three, then leinster, now leinster and a hint of ulster are carrying the others, so theres never enough to pump in for major development, sure welsey got deved for rugby then by time it was finished leinster grew out of it

sean188

Sure we're hardly that badly off in terms of stadia:

http://www.thescore.ie/ireland-stadium-capacity-843427-Mar2013/

But then again, in most countries there is probably more sharing of facilities and fewer major sports.

Victor

anncoates wrote: »

GAA can't share their grounds with other organizations unless it's an extraordinary temporary measure like opening up Croke Park?

You say that like a statement, but add a question mark at the end.

Why can't they share?

Gavin "shels"

Victor wrote: »

You say that like a statement, but add a question mark at the end.

Why can't they share?

Rule 42 in the GAA Rulebook.

anncoates

Victor wrote: »

You say that like a statement, but add a question mark at the end.

Why can't they share?

It's against their constitution AFAIK.

When they voted to allow Croke Park to be used by the IRFU and FAI, it was a temporary measure that didn't change the constitution.

Victor

Gavin shels wrote: »

Rule 42 in the GAA Rulebook.

Change the rules!

[Jackass]

It's not that simple unfortunately. The rulebook is more of a constitution in GAA and needs to be voted on by all members. They've made it very clear in the past that they would only open the grounds to "foreign sports" under extraordinary circumstances.

Given the amount of Government money that has gone into the network of stadia the GAA enjoy, really the only stadium for other sports in the country that has been state sponsored has been the Aviva stadium, but even then the FAI and IRFU footed half the bill.

There's no publicly owned major sporting infrastructure that I'm aware of (council / government owned) other than Tallaght Stadium, which is a great stadium, but far too small for anything outside of league of Ireland.

In most European countries, this type of infrastructure is seen as a public service and many national stadiums are publicly owned. We're one of the few countries that have had absolutely terrible sporting infrastructure for the guts of a century, as our football league couldn't compete with English football league so didn't have the funds, the GAA are amature and only recently in their history started charging for it like a professional game and rugby has only come mainstream since it turned professional in the 90's, but provided the national stadium from long before that as an amature sport without Government assistance.

I think it's about time that the councils and Government provide something like this for the people of Ireland. around 25,000 would be suitable as it's a mid range stadium, and there are endless uses for it, it could provide entertainment every weekend of the year through rugby, GAA, football and various other events sharing.

Also it's worth considering that a relatively small capital expenditure in Government terms for a project like this (20-30 million) would create employment and is pretty much bang in line with what would be considered fiscal stimulus spending to get the economy moving (along with other infrastructure projects).

Even if that kind of money was considered too large in light of all the cutbacks, a joint project of IRFU / Leinster providing up to 10 million (which is conceivable), Dublin City Council providing upwards of 5 million, Government provide up to 10 million, GAA 5 million (as they probably wouldn't use it as much) and an all be it cash strapped FAI could provide 5 million and usage would be divided based on contribution, so GAA and FAI could share in summer months at their peak, rugby during winter months...

Hell, that's not even considering that you could foot the vast majority of the bill by selling the naming rights alone! The "Investec" Arena or whatever..

Zebra3

While not anyway major sporting infrastructure, the RSC in Waterford and Morton Stadium (Fingal) are both municipal stadiums.

DCC seems to be trying to get their hands on Dalymount atm.

ezra_pound

Smokes and daggers! That's why there's none.

Der should be a whip around from all de lads and a fund raiser or two.

GLaDOS

Don't bump old threads for no reason