The biggest issue with the State preparing to pump another €30 million of public money into the staging of the 2027 Ryder Cup is not really the money. Galling as it may be that we are subsidising what may as well be a vast ad campaign for the super-luxury Adare Manor hotel and golf course, there’s a case to be made that the financial benefits may outweigh the public costs – which, according to last week’s report in The Irish Times, are now set to reach at least €88 million.
No: the truly depressing thing about the Ryder Cup project is that unlike, say, treating children with scoliosis or providing assessments for children with autism or tackling the poverty that now affects one in every five children, it will be achieved flawlessly.
Whatever must be done will be done. Government departments will work together seamlessly. Local and national authorities will pull out all the stops. Every fibre of our collective being will be strained to deliver this great event. We will all look at it in wonder. And yet again get that slightly nauseated feeling that this is what the State looks like when it can be bothered to get up off its behind.
[ Spending €30 million more on Ryder Cup 2027 is throwing good money after badOpens in new window ]
The Government Steering Group on the Ryder Cup is chaired by one of Ireland’s most respected civil servants, Martin Fraser, formerly secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach, now Ireland’s ambassador to the United Kingdom.
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Its members consist of senior representatives of (deep breath): the Department of Justice; Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage; Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment; Sport Ireland; Tourism Ireland; Fáilte Ireland; Limerick City and County Council; Department of Environment, Climate and Communications; Department of Transport; Department of the Taoiseach; Department of Finance; Department of Foreign Affairs; Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media; Department of Foreign Affairs; and Department of Public Expenditure. (Exhale.)
A few months ago, the lead minister, Patrick O’Donovan, posted a short video of himself at a meeting of this steering group. So far as I can make out, there are 24 officials in the room, all with their metaphorical sleeves rolled up. They might be a war cabinet or at the very least a national emergency response committee. This is what the State looks like when it is actually trying to solve an urgent problem.
And there is not the slightest doubt that all this talent and time and money and earnestness will deliver the desired results. In January, work began on a 7km bypass of Adare village (due to cost €150 million) – you can bet your house on it being finished in time for the Ryder Cup. The old rail line between Limerick and the port of Foynes – with a stop in Adare – is being reinstated at a cost of €152 million. Again, we can be certain that it will be delivered punctually for the sporting spectacular.
[ Government expecting request for further funding for 2027 Ryder Cup in AdareOpens in new window ]
Nothing will be allowed to get in the way of this great cause. If more public money is needed, more public money there shall be. If more fibre optic cables are required, they will be laid. If a park and ride facility is necessary, we’re on it already – the council is in the final stages of negotiations to buy one plot of land in Patrickswell for €4 million and has plans for another. Shuttle buses, catering facilities, media facilities, traffic management facilities, aeons worth of Garda overtime – whatever it takes will be there and there on time.
Why? Because of the only dread that seems to really haunt the State: fear of letting ourselves down. “Letting ourselves down” is not at all the same thing as letting citizens down. It is not the fear of failing to save a child from preventable agony or sending parents to bed in tears of rage and frustration because they can’t get the State to care enough about their vulnerable kids. It’s not surpassing the once unimaginable figure of almost 5,000 homeless children.
Letting ourselves down is, rather, an externally-driven apprehension. It’s about making a show of ourselves in front of the neighbours. We can’t have Americans or Europeans or, God forbid, Brits pointing at our Ryder Cup and saying the Paddies couldn’t manage it. So once the State is committed to a global extravaganza, hell or high water cannot be allowed to prevent its perfection.
Imagine if paediatric spinal surgery was a global spectator sport. Simon Harris’s promise in 2017 that no child would wait more than four months for scoliosis surgery would have been, not a worthy aspiration, but an absolute imperative. Behinds would have been kicked. Dawdlers would have been bawled out. The competent people would have been empowered. Obstacles would have been cleared. No way was Ireland going to make a show of itself by failing to deliver.
[ Ryder Cup 2027: The true cost of bringing the prestigious event to AdareOpens in new window ]
But think of that mighty Ryder Cup war cabinet sitting at O’Donovan’s steering group meeting. Think of the co-ordination of expertise and resources, the precise timelines, the to-do lists that will be ticked off by the next meeting – or else.
And then consider a single, infinitely bleak sentence from Hiqa’s report on the scarcely believable use of unauthorised springs for spinal surgery conducted under the remit of Children’s Health Ireland: “there were no overarching CHI-wide standardised governance structures and supporting policies and procedures in place for the introduction and use of medical devices”. No governance structures, no policies, no procedures – which means, in effect, no two hoots given.
Here’s something else we can say for sure. If Harris had promised in 2017 to deliver the 2027 Ryder Cup and the golfing hierarchy had then pulled out because Ireland wasn’t getting its act together, we know where Harris would be now – lying out of bounds in the political scrubland like a lost ball.
He would have let the country down in front of the world and that’s the triple bogey on the Irish politician’s card. Letting us down in front of ourselves is just par for the course.
