The original vision for a redeveloped Casement Park
Featured image credit: Populous
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) has reiterated that a redeveloped Casement Park will be delivered for Belfast with a capacity of at least 30,000, albeit at a “lower specification”.
A GAA delegation led by president Jarlath Burns yesterday (Thursday) met with Communities Minister Gordon Lyons to discuss the stalled project. In September, Casement Park was effectively struck from the hosting plan for the UK and Ireland’s staging of UEFA Euro 2028 after the UK Government confirmed it would not be providing funding due to the significant cost increases involved in the project.
Casement Park, which has been closed since 2013 and would have been Northern Ireland’s sole venue during Euro 2028, is due to be rebuilt with a capacity of around 30,000. The project has stalled numerous times over the years due to financial and planning issues.
Speaking yesterday, Burns said that while the GAA is still planning for a 30,000-plus stadium, the fit-out would be more “modest and basic” than what was originally envisioned as part of the Euro 2028 plan.
The GAA is said to have now switched back to the vison for Casement Park it held before it was chosen as a venue for the football showpiece. Following Thursday’s meeting, Burns said he was confident the project was a “priority” for Lyons and the Stormont Executive while admitting there is still no timeline for a fresh path forward.
“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 Burns, according to BelfastLive.
“He (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 too much of a luxurious standard that it is going to take money away from other important projects.
“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, 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.”
Burns said he did not want to make public the latest price tag for the redevelopment, said to be more than £400m (€475.5m/$516.5m) in September, as it was commercially sensitive ahead of a tender process. He also indicated the GAA would not commit further funds to the scheme beyond the £15m already pledged.
On Wednesday, a £1.5bn package of extra funding for Stormont was announced by UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Earlier on Thursday, Northern Ireland Secretary, Hilary Benn, suggested it is now up to Stormont to take up the Casement project, when asked whether the UK Government would be setting aside funds for the scheme.
“The Northern Ireland Executive has just been given quite a bit of additional money (in the Budget), and Casement Park is a Northern Ireland Executive project now the Euros have gone because it was impossible, even with lots of money going in, to build it in time,” Benn told BBC Radio Ulster.
The Irish Government last month called for the country to take on additional Euro 2028 matches following Belfast’s removal from the hosting plan.
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