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Sport for Business
Sport for Business
Breaking Ground: Ireland’s New Velodrome And Badminton Centre
Let us know what’s on your mind
We mark a landmark day as the Sport Ireland Campus breaks ground on a €100 million national velodrome and a new badminton centre, blending high-performance ambitions with real community access. Ministers set firm expectations on budgets and delivery while the CEOs of the two sports outline how a home base will transform pathways, participation, and pre‑LA 2028 preparation.
• €100m investment at Sport Ireland Campus
• National velodrome and 12‑court badminton centre
• Ministers set delivery timelines and accountability
• Local access for West Dublin communities prioritised
• Cycling targets structured camps and talent pathways
• Aim for pre‑LA 2028 training camps on-site
• Push for stalled infrastructure projects elsewhere to accelerate
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Being here and putting our little nation on the map, it's just you know, this is the stuff of of dreams on the top of your line.
SPEAKER_05:It's good, it's good, Jonathan Sexton.
SPEAKER_04:Hello and welcome to the Sport for Business Daily Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Hartnett, and this morning we are reporting on a breaking of the ground at the Sport Island campus yesterday. It was the first cut which will turn into a new national velodrome for cycling and a new national badminton centre as well. We speak to both of the CEOs of those two sports. But first of all, we had a word with the Minister for Culture, Communications, and Support, Patrick O'Donovan, and the Minister of State for Sport and Postal Policy, Charlie McConalogue. It was a wet and windy day, so apologies if the sound quality is not great. Um listen to Minister of State McConnellogue's comments as well about projects in the large scale infrastructure fund. The Support for Business Daily is an audio blast of the content which we produce every day on sportforbusiness.com. If you want to find out more, please do visit us at the website or sign up, subscribe, comment, and share wherever you get your podcasts from.
SPEAKER_01:It's an enormous investment by the government uh through Sport Ireland here. This has been spoken about for a long number of years. Um it goes back to 2016, maybe 2015, before that, um, that cycling Ireland and Bedminton Ireland needed a home. So look, we're delighted to be able to provide the financial um requirements uh aimed at building what will be a state-of-the-art facility um for cycling and badminton here. And it follows on on the work that's already done in the campus, and it also follows on on the work that we've done across the country through various different investments, and it's part of our sports policy. So, look, from our perspective, this is the next element, and we want them to move on as well as tribute as well.
SPEAKER_03:I think it's a sign of uh how the government sees sport as being massively important in people's lives and also in national life. And today is a really significant day uh for cycling and for badminton in particular. Um, we're committed to investing um at grassroots level right across the country, but also at national level here and at elite level, um, particularly through the development of the sports campus. We've seen wonderful uh expansion and development over the last number of years with world world-class facilities here now. We have very significant plans in the years ahead as well to step out the campus development plan with the cricket pitch also uh due for completion by 2030. But I think this is really, really significant for cycling in Badminton. Up until now, uh, for track cycling, our athletes have had to go abroad uh to do their training. And that's simply not a recipe for excellence or indeed a recipe for increasing participation. And what we'll have now be having a world-class facility based here in uh our national uh sports campus will mean that the athletes will be able to maximise their capacity to compete and to maximise the realise the limits of their ability and also inspire young people to have the opportunity as well to take up the sport, likewise with Badminton and the 12 courts that are going to be here at the centre of this development.
SPEAKER_06:How much will it cost?
SPEAKER_01:100 million is the is the budget that has been set aside for it and has been approved by the government. Um so look, it comes uh from our national development plan allocation, um, and you see the contractor is already here, so we hope to see uh the contractor move in immediately um after Christmas and begin the works, and hopefully then look it'll be uh finished um in time for 2028. Um but it it gives a new lease of life and a new lease of optimism uh to people who had thought that this was going to happen years ago uh and who had a number of false sons, so it was great to just coming back on sport, these marquee constructions are hugely important.
SPEAKER_04:Is there any update on where you are with the large-scale sports infrastructure fund? Because there was a lot of announcements last year and there were time limits placed on some of those.
SPEAKER_03:Are there any of them that are nearing being shovel ready or well our focus is on making sure that those that we gave awards to are built and delivered? Uh, unfortunately, progress has been too slow for a number of those projects. Uh, there will we have a two rounds, 2019 and 2024. Um, obviously the most recent round um is they're moving forward and they're at the early stages. But for the 2019 round, some of them are going to top us in 2023. Some of them simply have not been moving the way they need to. And uh the focus now over the next year or two is going to be in working intensively with those projects to make sure they get into delivery and to ensure that they deliver the results that the government have uh committed funding uh to see come to reality. And uh, if they don't do that, then uh there'll be plenty of other projects that can avail of the funding instead. Um, but in the very short term, the message is to all of those now to get a move on uh and to see them through so that the public can benefit from them. Great, thanks very much.
SPEAKER_04:Thanks, Minister. So, Ender, we're out here in a muddied field which will, within the next couple of years, grow into a fabulous new national velodrome and badminton centre. What's it gonna mean for the sport to actually have a home that is going to be shiny and new and big?
SPEAKER_00:It's funny, uh, my colleague, the high performance director from Badminton Iron, Dan McGee, was just saying a few minutes ago. When he started off years ago, we were in, he started playing in a one court hall in Rafault. When he moved to Dublin, they were playing in a very at-the-time rundown centre in Baldoyle, which is reopening tonight, having been completely refurbished. He then moved into an adequate merino, which has since been done up, and then he moved into the National Indoor Arena, which is amazing, and now we get our own final home. For somebody like Dan who is badminton touring through, that is an incredible journey to we will now have our home, our home venue, and our place to call home. Most importantly, though, for me is if you draw a line from roughly Bally Moon south towards Blanchettstown, in from the M50, all the way across County Bones, there is very little indoor facilities for sport. And all of West Dublin can benefit from this. And we've made it our mission, it's our North Star for this venue. All courts filled all day, every day with youth groups, communities, mums, new mums clubs, men's sheds, power of Abington especially is going to play an important role here because we want to make sure that it is a community facility as well as our high performance centre. That's what the government has built, and we can't just go grand, keep our arms around for high performance. We've got to make it open for everybody. That's our ambition, and that's why we were so excited today. That finally we have our home, but West Dublin has will have a new facility.
SPEAKER_04:And the hope is that things can move quite quickly from now on. It it does. It always takes a long time to actually get to the to the top of the mountain, but once you're there, things actually.
SPEAKER_00:We currently take four courts in the morning uh in the high performance centre. Our plan is to expand that to eight by the time we move into the new centre. So that's twice the number of young athletes going through a high performance programme every morning coming from all over Ireland. And it'll also mean then that we've more time to spend with our senior athletes and we can start inviting players into our amazing facility from around the world to spar with Nat and Rachel and Sophie and Chief and the others. So we want to make this a destination for players to come to us as well as us, because normally we go abroad uh for sparring. Now they'll be able to come here because we will have a world-class facility.
SPEAKER_04:Great. And maybe we'll just write it in thick pencil as opposed to pen at the moment. But have you a date in mind that you can imagine the first shuttle flying?
SPEAKER_00:Nat was asking me this morning. I think knowing other facilities around Europe that have been built, it is a longer build, particularly with the wooden flooring that needs to be laid in and dry in a particular kind of way. I think we'll see shuttles in April 28, and I think the our Olympians, when they're travelling in Paralympics, uh hopefully to LA will have a facility for a camp before they go. Wow. But it will be it's two to two and a half years in in our books.
SPEAKER_04:Uh be the blink of an eye. Thanks very much.
SPEAKER_00:Honestly, blink of an eye.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you, Ender.
SPEAKER_00:It is a blink of the equipment.
SPEAKER_04:And I'm joined now by James Quilligan, the CEO of Cycling Island. This is a big day for the sport. It's a massive um yeah, the words can't describe, I think, what it what it means to cycling for the country. There's a lovely visual image which you'll be able to see on the on the website as well, as of what it's going to look like. And we've seen that for a couple of years, and this has been in the making. But when you actually see a shovel going into the ground, that's uh a really important milestone.
SPEAKER_06:Absolutely, it becomes real then. We we've all seen the photographs and talked about it for years and years. So, yeah, today's huge, just to as you say, shovel in the ground, contracts are signed. Let's get it going now.
SPEAKER_04:And ministers O'Donovan and McConalogue have spoken uh very warmly about the the importance of of these signature constructions actually and what they what they can do for the sport. What do you think it can do for cycling? Because you're in a good spot at the moment. We've got some some great elite athletes that are performing at the highest level with uh you know with Lara and Ben and any number of them. But what can this do for that next generation? Will it accelerate now where we where we can get to?
SPEAKER_06:I think absolutely, I I think it will give us a structure and then we can put a real structure in from a much younger level. You know, at the moment it's hit and miss. We've camps, for example, this week we have our Paralympic high performance and development athletes in Portugal. You know, so if if this was built, they'd be here, and the follow-up beyond them would be here as well. So the opportunities are just massive.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, um, and just finally, I I I spoke to Ender Lynch from Badminton Ireland as well, and even though we're writing it in pick pencil rather than pen, but as a date that we're looking at this as being a two, two and a half year build, that's what you have in mind as well?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I I think look, definitely we'd be looking at they're due on site in February, I think. Um we're looking at two years from then. So pre-LA, we'd hope maybe have a camp. Pre-LA would be huge. Um that's the target. We'd keep the pressure on now to make sure it happens on time and within budget as well.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, well, the very best of luck with it. And uh yeah, special day for cycling. Super, thanks, Rob. So there you go. It was a special day in that uh field just adjacent to the gymnastics centre as part of the national indoor arena, if you're familiar with the campus. We heard in reverse order from James Quilligan, the CEO of Cycling Ireland, from Ender Lynch, the CEO of Admiralton Ireland, from the Minister of State for Sport and Postal Policy Charlie McConnell, and from the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, Patrick O'Donovan. It will be an exciting couple of years watching this fabulous building rising from the ground, part of what is an exceptional facility out at the Sport Island campus. We will be back again tomorrow morning. We've got an interview with former Ireland Football International Kevin Doyle, talking about football from the elite level of the Middle of Budapest, all the way through to grassroots with his local club in County Wexford. We will then be back on Monday. Nice piece with Ellen McConville from Tanao about her uh running of a program which has been uh upskilling young female sports. And then sticking with the women and support theme, we will be live at the Talis Stadium on Tuesday, December the 9th, uh, for a morning of conversation and networking with uh friends and colleagues and doers from across the sporting and business sector. It's our annual women and support conference in partnership with our friends at Lidl. There are still some tickets available that you can check out the running order and buy your ticket if you want to come and join us at supportforbusiness.com. Other than that, have a great day, and we will see you back here tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02:This is the stuff of of dreams.
