UK government ‘cannot commit’ to Casement funding without more details on costs

By David Young, PA

The UK government cannot confirm whether it will provide funding to redevelop Casement Park until it knows the costs and sees revised proposals for the stadium, Hilary Benn has said.

The Northern Ireland Secretary was commenting after the GAA expressed hope that a lower spec redevelopment project can be delivered without an excessive drain on the public purse.

GAA president Jarlath Burns said the organisation was still planning for a venue with a capacity in excess of 30,000 but he said the fit-out would be more “modest and basic” than what was envisaged when the stadium was earmarked as a host venue for the Euro 2028 football tournament.

It is understood the GAA has now reverted to the plan it had in place for Casement prior to it being selected as a Euros venue.

Mr Burns led a GAA delegation in a meeting with Stormont’s Communities Minister Gordon Lyons in Belfast to discuss the stalled project on Thursday.

In September, the UK government torpedoed hopes that the currently derelict west Belfast venue would host games in Euro 2028 when it announced that it would not bridge a funding gap to deliver the redevelopment in time.

It said the risk to the public purse of missing the tournament deadline was too high.

The UK government also expressed concerns about how the cost of the project had potentially risen to more than £400 million.

The Stormont Executive had committed to redevelop Casement Park in 2011 as part of a stadium strategy that delivered revamps for football’s Windsor Park and the rugby ground at Ravenhill.

While the two other Belfast-based projects went ahead, the redevelopment of Casement then was delayed because of legal challenges by local residents.

Then, the Stormont Executive committed £62.5 million to the Casement project.

The GAA has pledged to contribute £15 million.

The Irish Government has offered roughly €49 million (£42 million) towards the project and said this funding remains in place even without the stadium being built for the Euros.

After the UK government pulled the plug on Casement as a Euros venue, Mr Lyons insisted the Executive still remained committed to redeveloping the ground for the needs of the GAA.

On Thursday, Mr Benn was pressed over whether the UK government was still prepared to top up the funding pot for Casement Park even though it was no longer going to be a Euros venue.

On a visit to Wrightbus in Ballymena, the Northern Ireland Secretary told reporters he was not in a position to confirm whether extra funding will be forthcoming from the Treasury.

“I welcome the fact that, according to reports, Jarlath Burns has said that there’s going to be a revised proposal for Casement Park,” he said.

“The Prime Minister said some time ago we need to see an alternative proposition, and I look forward to hearing from the Executive following those discussions some more about that proposition, including what the cost is, because I’m not in a position to give a commitment today.

“We don’t know what the cost is. We don’t know what the gap is.

“But this has been a longstanding commitment of the Executive to ensure that Casement Park gets built.

“But we need to take it a stage at a time, and I look forward to hearing more about what this revised stadium looks like.”

Mr Benn added: “I would like to know what the cost of this revised proposition is, and I look forward to hearing from the Executive and from the GAA as to precisely what it is.

“But, at the moment, it appears to be a very, very large gap.”

Following Thursday’s meeting, Mr Burns said he was confident the project was a “priority” for Mr Lyons.

However, the GAA president said there was still no timeline for delivering the new stadium.

He said Mr Lyons would have to bring the GAA’s plan to the wider Stormont Executive for consideration.

“We have had a relook at the type of stadium that is going to be built based on the fact that we’re not getting the Euros any more,” said Mr Burns.

“He (Mr Lyons) took all of that on board.

“It’s a significantly smaller cost because we’ve taken a lot of the fit-out away from it to try and make it as small a cost to the public purse as possible because we are aware that there are a lot of demands on the public purse at the moment, and we are responsible people, and we want to make sure that when Casement Park is built that it will be built properly to safety standards, but not to too much of a luxurious standard that it is going to take money away from other important projects.”

He added: “We are still looking at a capacity of over 30,000, we can still do that with a more basic and modest fit-out, because we think that it is very important that although we get our stadium, which is part of obviously the stadium strategy and the infrastructure strategy and the Programme for Government priorities, that we do so in a responsible way.

“We have managed to retain the number of people who will fit into it while having it to a lower specification.”

Mr Burns said he did not want to make public the latest costing figure for the rebuild as it was commercially sensitive ahead of a tender process.

He also said he wanted to discuss the plan face-to-face with the Northern Ireland Secretary to determine the Government’s position in regard to funding.

“I remain confident in Hilary Benn and what he can produce for us,” Mr Burns added.

The GAA president also indicated his organisation would not be committing further funds on top of the £15 million it has already pledged.

Asked when he felt Casement could be eventually delivered, Mr Burns said: “We don’t have a time frame, to be honest, that’s in the hands of others, because we are waiting on the funding gap to be closed.

“We are hopeful that that can happen soon.

“That’s really in the hands of the Executive now, and obviously in the hands of the British Government and the Treasury, to see what they are going to come up with to close that funding gap.”