It was an extraordinary failure.

You have made your point, Senator. Let the Leader respond.

I welcome Senator Leyden's new-found interest in sport. This Member did not want women playing rugby and had to retract his statement in that regard. I welcome his new-found interest in sport and I wish him well. All those of us who are sportspeople will educate Senator Leyden on the different rules of the game. We would be happy to bring him to any game he wishes to see.

It was an excellent cross-party all-Ireland approach.

It was about bringing an organisation to Ireland and bringing a major event to Ireland.

The Leader might get a ticket for him for the Ireland-Fiji game.

Was Senator Leyden at the women's Rugby World Cup in August? I did not see him there. Has he ever been to a rugby match? Has he ever been to a women's match?

Allow the Leader to respond.

I will take him whenever he wants.

Allow the Leader to respond. Do not drop the ball, Senator.

I will try not to play the ball forward. We are all disappointed at the bid. It was not for the want of trying by the sporting organisations, the Government and communities and sporting bodies North and South. It is disappointing. We should look at World Rugby's critique of how it awards the Rugby World Cup. Perhaps that should be questioned rather than Ireland's bid in terms of the type of country preferred, the amount of money available and the stadiums.

The all-Ireland soccer team is a matter for the Irish Football Association and the Football Association of Ireland. Obviously, we are disappointed. It is a perennial chestnut that comes up when one of us does not do well but the other does well.

That is sport, a Chathoairligh, as you know. You played yourself, and you are a fine sportsman. You win some, you lose some. It is better to have tried than not to have tried at all. I refer to the aspiration and the ambition we have. Senator Richmond has brought up the need to have a debate on not just infrastructure, but on sport in general. It binds us as a nation. It unites us, but it also divides us, as we saw this morning with the flippant, populist nonsense we heard from Senator Leyden. I will not dwell on the issue of the all-Ireland hockey team and the Commonwealth Games but the all-Ireland hockey team-----

I played for a Connacht vocational school, very successfully by the way.

I would say it was indebted to the Senator.

Very successfully. Thank you.

There is no doubt that Senator Leyden will be-----

-----waving letters on the sports capital programme which Senator Hopkins and Senator Feighan have delivered in Roscommon. That is probably what he will be trying to do next, but that is all right.

They are not doing too well so far.