{"id":15785,"date":"2024-10-31T11:05:31","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T11:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/stormont-to-decide-how-to-take-development-forward-says-benn\/"},"modified":"2024-10-31T11:05:31","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T11:05:31","slug":"stormont-to-decide-how-to-take-development-forward-says-benn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/stormont-to-decide-how-to-take-development-forward-says-benn\/","title":{"rendered":"Stormont to decide how to take development forward, says Benn"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"PacemakerPacemaker<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

An artist’s impression of the planned Casement Park stadium in Belfast<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The Northern Ireland Executive is to decide how to take the redevelopment of Casement Park forward, the NI Secretary has said.<\/p>\n

The executive “has just been given quite a bit of additional money”, Hilary Benn told BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, a \u00a31.5bn package of extra funding for Stormont was announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves.<\/a><\/p>\n

“The executive now has more money and it can spend it on a range of priorities, it’s a devolved government, they make the choices, we provide the funding,” Benn said.<\/p>\n

Plans to redevelop the stadium in time for the Euro 2028 football tournament were halted last month.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The UK government said that the estimated cost of rebuilding Casement Park stadium in Belfast has “risen dramatically” to more than \u00a3400m.<\/p>\n

The government said it would not be providing funding to redevelop the stadium in time for the tournament, adding that there was a “significant risk” it would not be built in time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘An alternative proposition’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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On Thursday, Benn apologised that Casement Park could not of been built in time for the Euro 2028 football tournament, but said that was down to another part of the “toxic legacy” left behind by the previous government. <\/p>\n

In light of that, he said it is time to pursue an “alternative proposition” because “what everyone had been planning for in respect of the Euros has gone”.<\/p>\n

“It wasn\u2019t possible, so what does the revised plan look like?” he added. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Benn blamed the “toxic legacy” left behind by the Tories for the incompletion of Casement Park<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Analysis – Enda McClafferty – BBC NI Political Editor<\/b><\/p>\n

To borrow a phrase from another code it feels like Hilary Benn is getting ‘off side’ in the Casement Park saga. <\/p>\n

For him it is now a problem for Stormont Ministers to resolve. <\/p>\n

On the surface it is easy for him to walk away. <\/p>\n

Providing the extra cash to redevelop the stadium was after all a Tory party promise linked to Euro 2028. <\/p>\n

It was also an executive commitment with \u00a362m set aside. <\/p>\n

He could further argue that London didn’t help pay for the soccer and rugby stadia improvements included in the same package. <\/p>\n

But as one source suggested the Secretary of State isn’t so much stepping away as “dampening” any expectation that London will make up the funding shortfall. <\/p>\n

Before then the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) will likely have to scale back its plans to make the stadium fit the budget.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Pacemaker An artist’s impression of the planned Casement Park stadium in Belfast The Northern Ireland Executive is to decide how to take the redevelopment of Casement Park forward, the NI Secretary has said. The executive “has just been given quite a bit of additional money”, Hilary Benn told BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme. On Wednesday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[6488,6486,6487,2468],"class_list":["post-15785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-ireland","tag-benn","tag-decide","tag-development","tag-stormont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15787,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15785\/revisions\/15787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}