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Updated 3.15pm
BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Theresa May has backed Ireland’s bid to host the Rugby World Cup (RWC) in 2023.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and former Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll were in London today for Ireland’s official bid presentation.
Following the presentation, the Taoiseach visited the prime minister in 10 Downing Street, where he revealed that May has written to the Rugby World Cup organisation to state that the UK fully supports Ireland hosting the tournament.
Ireland faces tough competition from South Africa and France, the two competing candidates that also presented their bids this morning.
However, the Irish government is confident it will win out.
Varadkar was the only State leader to attend the presentations today, where he stated that he “wouldn’t have missed today for anything”.
“Ireland is a rugby crazy nation,” he declared.
Preparations for this bid have been in the works for a number of years, and in the last 18 months there has been a big push behind Ireland’s bid to host the tournament – even getting Irish actor Liam Neeson to narrate a promotional video last year.
This weekend, another promotional video was released, which has already clocked up nearly 60,000 views.
The final decision on who will host the contest will be made on 15 November.
Varadkar, who has been working on the Ireland bid for more than four years now, said it is a “big ambition” to host the tournament, and he is “confident of success”.
He told the officials that Ireland had the infrastructure to host such a tournament, adding that the “business case adds up for the economy and the Irish taxpayer”.
The Taoiseach said such an all-island competition would “bring people together”, and highlighted that there were plans to tap into the Irish diaspora if Ireland is successful in winning the bid.
He said he was “very happy” to get to this point, stating:
I hope we can get good news in a few weeks.
In order to pitch the bid, emergency legislation had to be passed to allow the government to commit the €320 million it would cost to host the Rugby World Cup.
Originally, it was understood that no new law was needed, however, the former attorney general Máire Whelan changed her mind.
It’s understood that officials believe Ireland is in with a good chance, with Sports Minister Shane Ross stating that an all-Ireland strategy to hosting the competition does not appear to pose any “political difficulties”.
Ross also confirmed all Irish rugby matches will be free-to-air if Ireland wins the RWC 2023 bid.
Some critics argue the costs of hosting the competition will be too great. However, Ross said he expects the economy will make money.
Cancellation insurance
The minister said they are prepared for all eventualities and have even taken out cancellation insurance which covers things like terrorist attacks and acts of God which could lead to cancellation.
The insurance policy does not cover eventualities like a big team being knocked out very early. Ross has acknowledged there are certain things that the government cannot guard against.
“The danger of the figures not being as good as in past World Cups is always there but is very small. In comparison with the World Cup hosted in the United Kingdom, for example, we expect to get a huge number of British visitors. That obviously did not apply in the British case because they were already there. The British fans are the best travellers of the lot,” Ross told a recent Oireachtas committee.
Hotel accommodation
In terms of whether Ireland could accommodate such an influx of people, he said:
“This remains something of an unknown because we do not know where we are going to be in 2023. We have looked at this crisis, which is a difficulty at the moment, particularly in Dublin. The tournament will take place in Ireland’s shoulder season of September and October.
“This is really good time to host it, not just for tourism and sports tourism, but also because there will not be the same critical pressure on hotel beds that there would be in mid-summer. We estimate that we will need 2.7 million bed nights for tourism and we have 12.2 million beds over this period,” he said, adding he expected capacity in Dublin to rise by 6,000 additional beds by 2020.
Brexit talks
Following the pitch for Ireland to host the world cup, the Taoiseach met with the UK Prime Minister Theresa May.
Top on the agenda for discussion was Brexit.
The pair last spoke to each other on Friday morning, ahead of May’s speech on Britain’s plan to leave the EU. It’s understood the prime minister was anxious to speak to Varadkar and outline her key points ahead of delivering her speech in Florence.
The Taoiseach restated his cautious welcome for elements of the speech, stating that it is too early to say whether Britain has made sufficient progress in Brexit talks.
“I have always encouraged the British government to be more specific about how they see the future relationship between Britain and Ireland,” he said, adding that May’s specific mention about there being no physical infrastructure on the border was to be welcomed.
“To me that is very important. It is a little bit more than saying that you don’t want a border of the past or a hard border. It is saying that there will be no physical infrastructure. It is a very strong statement in my view,” he said.
Varadkar said he pointed out that the best way for this to be achieve is for Britain to remain in the Customs Union and the Single Market “in some form”.
The Taoiseach emphasised that Ireland will continue to negotiate as part of the EU27 remaining member States, represented by Michel Barnier and his task force.
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The US is the epitome of do and I say not as I do.
@Ger Whelan: as
@Ger Whelan: agreed to an extent about that statement, only thing is that tik toc is a danger the tik toc in China and Asia as a whole promotes education, music instruments tutorials, math ect, the European and American versions promote life distractions and dumbing down of children, I see it myself with my grandchildren they have little attention span zero social skills there schooling gets affected by constant distractions on that app particularly and of course there is the security issue of privacy but all in all tic tok would not amend their app in America so the ban has to be done.
@Darran Macken: Naive parents giving children phones is the real problem here, but you are correct, apps like tik tok turn children into zombies.
@Darran Macken: interesting that you comment about tiktok being different in other locations as when I initially joined tiktok most of the content was from Asia but over time that changed and the content became more local Irish, UK and USA based. I actually preferred seeing how other cultures lived and farmed etc.. and I think tiktok is no worse than google or meta in data collection. The USA is practicing isolationism and censorship by the action of banning tiktok and hypocrisy by also not banning Google and Meta for the information they collect
@Ger Whelan: Most powerful country in the world…it’s like a mom smoking a cigarette and telling a child not to….do it kid and FAFO!!!!
@Darran Macken: Hi Darren what your seeing in your grandchildren wasn’t as a direct result of TikTok it’s as a result of social media in general especially Snapchat. Often heard my friend saying about his 4 daughters sat in the same room and my friend asking what you all doing and they reply messaging each other. I said to him the art of conversation is gone on the younger generation. It’s so so sad.
@Darran Macken: So Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc have no negative effects on your grandchildren? Pull the other one. The only difference between tictok and all the other social media apps is tictok is Chinese and they get your data and the rest are American and they get your data.
@Darran Macken: our version has all and every bit of the educational vids too you know. People just choose to watch daft influencers dancing.
@Darran Macken: the thing is that this could be said of any social media app. If they’re being banned for rotting minds then ban them all. I’d have no issue with that. But the current reason for banning it is made up because it’s hurting the profitability of American competitors
@Niall O’Cofaigh: When did you join out of interest? If you were an early adopter of a new app it’s not surprising at all that over time as it became ubiquitous in the West you saw more content generated in the West. However, if you know when you joined and it is much later than when it became popular that might be interesting.
This is amazing, all the “content” creators in America won’t know what to do!
@Eoghan Augusta: They do and many have started doing it.
@Eoghan Augusta: what about Daniel Larson? He is the greatest US creator and it will be sad to see him go.
@Eoghan Augusta: ironically tens of thousands of them have already switched to Rednote, which is similar to tiktok but is directly owned by the Chinese government, and they’re quite happy to give their data. So it is already back firing on Congress. Mark Zuckerberg pushed for this ban, no doubt thinking that Americans would switch to Instagram reels but that isn’t happening and Metas share price has been dropping in the last week and a bit.
Can we not ban the United States instead. Think most of the world is sick to the teeth of the constant warmongering BS.
Don’t use tok tok so have no opinion should it be banned. Would however agree to a EU ban on X and possibly Facebook. The amount of dangerous propaganda and lies spread on these sites is outrageous!
@Barry Gallagher: you must be wrapped in cotton wool
@Barry Gallagher: Any examples of this “dangerous propaganda” that you’d like to share with the rest of the class?
@Barry Gallagher: just crawl under your sisters bed and put your fingers in your ears Barry. No one can hurt you there.
@Freda Peeple: so you agree with weirdo Musk that he can use X to further his own agenda with disinformation and lies to achieve world domination or whatever the hell his aim is. He certainly doesn’t care about you or me or the plain people of America. Worse than Goebbels but far bigger audience. Would love to see Zuckerberg the spineless coward get his comeuppance after firing his fact checkers. Facebook will become a bigger sewer than it already is. Thank God I never joined it!
@Barry Gallagher: why don’t we ban Jewish owned media while we’re at it as they push their own Zionist agenda too? For example – Sky, BBC, Pretty much every single news outlet in the United States I’m not going to list all of them, Facebook, Instagram, ChatGPT, Google, YouTube etc. Should be van all these sites? That’s almost all the internet that people use.
@Barry Gallagher: now where did you hear his plan is world domination? Its almost like its media driven. That’s ironic isn’t it
@Barry Gallagher: agreed. Both platforms are toxic way beyond anything on Tiktok.
@Barry Gallagher: You seem to have an in-depth knowledge of it despite never having joined it. Strange. Almost like you’re talking out of your hole.
@Joe Willis: neither sky nor BBC are “Jewish owned”. And I would never watch American news broadcasters because I am not a child that needs to be told what to think.
@Chop Chop: Alright cowboy! Never read Mein Kamph either! Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a load of Bollix..
@Joe Willis: Sure agree with you to an extent, no media is perfect which is why I would treat a lot of it with a pinch of salt. But I have never heard Sky News or the BBC etc promote wild conspiracy theories such as FEMA and hurricanes, Pizza Gate, stolen elections and California wild fires to mention a few. He sets the algorithm too which favours pro far right. Tens of millions of Maga nuts believe this stuff which you know full well.
@Gearoid MacEachaidh: Sky is owned by Comcast. Comcast founder and CEO is a Jew, Brian L. Roberts.
Does Trump think the expendables was a documentary?
@Freda Peeple: Your first three words would have completed your query…
@Freda Peeple: retired and dangerous
@honey badger: Touché mr badger
@Freda Peeple: Miss Badger
@Peter Connaughton: How did you check?
Very wrong and a continuation on the American return to isolation
So much for freedom of speech…
@Gerry Dornan: Wasn’t Musk vilified when he said a couple of weeks ago that he is upset at the child gang rapes in the UK? They said he was ‘interfering’ in another countries affairs. So much for freedom of speech then.
@Joe Willis: he was vilified for posting lies about it.
Now, instead of the CCP all up in their stuff, Americans will now have the NSA all up in their stuff.
@David Guiney: The only reason they want to ban Tic Toc is because NSA does not have backdoor access.
Good news for RedNote, Lemon8 and Clapper though.
So much freedom…lol.
Most controlled society in the western world, but as long as they have enough guns for several mass shootings everyday they’re happy.
Tiktok is a fantastic source of global political soundbites and video. That’s why butcher Biden banned it. The US is becoming the most censored and controlled media in the world.
If the chinese ever spy on my phone, they’ll find that half the time I’m on the phone to a Chinese anyway, ordering me queen chicken with chips and coke
@Conor Mc: I have a Chinese made phone. I make sure no one ever speaks bad about them around me in case they’re listening. Great bunch of lads the Chinese.
Someone’s gonna make a fortune from this eventually, Who tho? they aint publicly traded
US Politics consumes itself with some complete bullshit to be fair. How is TikTok being allowed or not, going to help the average american that both sides kept bleating on about helping on the campaign trail? Every social media site spies on you. Basically just an exercise to have the right people controlling the surveillance.
So the court decided the ban is valid. Time for US teens to wake up and learn that “tik toker” is no job. Wonder what happens to the social media influencer courses offered by some irish universities now. Will those who started it finish or look for something “real” instead
@no no no: The US Supreme Court has no jurisdiction in Ireland. But you’re 100% right they should get real jobs
@no no no: yeah I tend to agree. another job title that grinds me in ‘content creator’. say one person describe themselves as a ‘social media presence consultant’.
@no no no: many tiktokers are making more in a week than we make in a year. It’s time for boomers and my fellow Gen Xers to accept that social media influencer IS a job, whether we like it or not.
@Gearoid MacEachaidh: Might be the next big economic bubble…
@Diarmuid Hunt: might be but it’s been going on since the early 00s with YouTube. Plenty of people have made foutunes, there, and on Vine, Instagram and tiktok too. A quarter of a century on there still seems to be an appetite for it.
@Gearoid MacEachaidh: It has grown exponentially since then. Many previous bubbles grew too fast, that’s why they burst.
@Gearoid MacEachaidh: Not fair on GenX, we’re the original internet age… we were their at the start, we built the chatroom, forum culture. Would agree tho, a real job is one that pays you real money, simple as that.
Great news if this happens. It’d be great if the same happened here.
Should be banned here too
Time is def ticking, tick tock….
Biden had a chance to do one good thing before he left office on January 20th, but he couldn’t even do that. He signed the bill that banned TikTok, why couldn’t he just enforce the ban that he signed now that the Supreme Court has officially signed off and blocks the appeal? It’s a pretty disappointing image of weakness that Trump is projecting by opposing the ban on the app as well, despite the overwhelming evidence that TikTok not only spies on Americans, but deliberately pushes pro-CCP and anti-West propaganda onto users. Hopefully someone talks sense into Trump. Rescinding the invitation to the CEO of TikTok to attend his second inauguration would be a start, but I won’t get my hopes up about such a move happening.
It won’t be banned. Biden has said that he won’t close it on Sunday and will leave it up to the next administration to do it. Trump has invited the CEO of tiktok to his inauguration. Not Trump likes more than compliments, so if he says nice things about Don the Con tiktok will continue as is
Oh what will they do
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