{"id":133441,"date":"2025-11-11T05:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T05:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/133441\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T05:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T05:25:09","slug":"stormont-does-not-have-100-million-sitting-about-to-fund-casement-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/133441\/","title":{"rendered":"Stormont \u2018does not have \u00a3100 million sitting about to fund Casement Park\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Stormont Executive does not have \u00a3100 million \u201csitting about\u201d to bridge the funding shortfall over the Casement Park redevelopment, Emma Little-Pengelly has said.<\/p>\n

The deputy First Minister told MLAs it was her understanding the GAA is not currently willing to put any additional funding towards the rebuild of the west Belfast stadium.<\/p>\n

Plans for a 34,000-capacity stadium have been mired in uncertainty because of the major funding shortfall.<\/p>\n

\"PaulDeputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly answered questions about the rebuild of Casement Park at Stormont on Monday. Photo: Liam McBurney\/PA.<\/p>\n

In the summer, the UK government allocated \u00a350 million to support the redevelopment of the currently derelict GAA venue.<\/p>\n

While that added to around \u00a3120 million that has been pledged by the Stormont Executive, Irish Government and GAA, it was still not enough to bridge the gap to cover the cost of the rebuild.<\/p>\n

SDLP MLA Justin McNulty raised the issue at ministerial questions, stating people were \u201cfed up\u201d with years of delay.<\/p>\n

The deputy First Minister said the delay was \u201cnever a political issue\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said money currently committed to the project is \u201cnot sufficient against the plans the GAA have\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI understand the GAA are not willing at this point to put any additional money from their perspective into the project.<\/p>\n

\"CasementThe project to rebuild Casement Park has been delayed for years (Niall Carson\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will leave a significant shortfall in relation to the aspiration and costs versus what is on the table, that is a challenge for people to look at, including the GAA.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to seeing what the GAA proposals are in relation to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alliance Party MLA David Honeyford said there needed to be \u201ccross-departmental leadership\u201d to deliver the project.<\/p>\n

Ms Little-Pengelly responded: \u201cThe project was not delayed by the Northern Ireland Executive, it was not delayed because of political disagreement, it was not delayed because of the DUP.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were lots of local issues in relation to planning and the costs of the project have increased significantly, leaving I think many people would assess to be well in excess of \u00a3100 million of a shortfall on that project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Executive does not have \u00a3100 million sitting about for this specific project.<\/p>\n

I understand the GAA are not willing at this point to put any additional money from their perspective into the project<\/p>\n

Emma Little-Pengelly<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many pressures within the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the vast majority of capital funding likely to be available over the next 20 years was \u201calready fully committed against a range of projects\u201d.<\/p>\n

The deputy First Minister said: \u201cWe have been actively looking to see how can we increase the amount of capital because of big, big issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example within NI Water, which is now holding back in terms of housing and economic development.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are big challenges and it is something the Executive needs to look at.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the case of this project there is a significant capital shortfall; that is a reality, it is not political posturing, it is not about people being difficult, it is just a reality and there is not a solution to that issue at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stormont ministers committed \u00a362.5 million to\u00a0Casement\u00a0in 2011, as part of a strategy to revamp it along with football\u2019s Windsor\u00a0Park\u00a0and the rugby ground at Ravenhill.<\/p>\n

While the two other Belfast-based projects went ahead, the redevelopment of\u00a0Casement\u00a0was delayed for several years because of planning-based legal challenges by local residents.<\/p>\n

The estimated build cost spiralled in the interim.<\/p>\n

While planning permission has since been secured, the money committed to the rebuild is not currently enough to deliver it.<\/p>\n

As well as the Stormont contribution of \u00a362.5 million and the UK Government\u2019s \u00a350 million, the Irish government has offered around \u00a342 million and the GAA has pledged to contribute at least \u00a315 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Stormont Executive does not have \u00a3100 million \u201csitting about\u201d to bridge the funding shortfall over the Casement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-133441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}