Everything Ulster - Election 2005

HENRY McDonald, the Observer's Ireland corrspeondent, is writing a weekly column in Belfast's new paper, the Daily View. This week he wrote an article attacking the NIO's decision that the Maze/Long Kesh site was the 'only viable option' for Northern Ireland's new national stadium.

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Today the Direct Misrule minister for finance, Ian Pearson, Labour MP for Dudley South announced that the Maze site was the only viable proposal for Northern Ireland's new stadium.

Despite opposition from sports fans across Northern Ireland, from Belfast to Londonderry, to Bangor, to Drumahoe, the government have decided to land Northern Ireland with a stadium in the backend of nowhere, against the wishes of Northern Ireland football fans and Ulster Rugby fans. It's true the site is only a few miles form the City* of Lisburn, but as the Millenium Stadim and Lansdowne Road (remember the Bertie Bowl?) testify, to get any kind of decent atmosphere about a city on the day of a big game, the stadium must be located in the city centre. The arguments for this have been made ad nauseum and I won't go into them here.

I'd love to see the reports on the viability of the sites (if such reports even exist) just to compare and contrast how far the government went to investigate the potential for the other sites. We were always going to be told the Maze site was the only show in town. Unofficial sources have been saying this for months, now we know.

It would certainly seem plausible that Ian Pearson and his friend Angela Smith, have been lying from day one on this. Why is the Maze the only viable option? Was it really about the money? Did they genuinely try and overcome this? Or was the site selection simply about the career of a few jumped up Labour government ministers, attempting to make a name for themselves?

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