I would also like to be associated with the comments directed towards the Acting Leader. I am not sure he wants us to do that. I withdraw them so.

I want to acknowledge the tremendous performance by Cape Verde yesterday. At the heart of that performance was Pico Lopes, who is a Shamrock Rovers player. As a Shamrock Rovers fan, I see these man of the match performances week in, week out, so it is not any huge surprise to me. It was fantastic, and I congratulate him and the Cape Verde team. Cape Verde is the third smallest nation ever to appear at a FIFA World Cup. It is an incredible achievement. Pico has also been an outspoken critic of Israel and its participation in European football and he has campaigned for the Ireland-Israel game to be stopped. It was a great night for him and his family, his wife Leah and their new child Diego.

We are just two weeks away from the beginning of Ireland's EU Presidency. To say that Government and senior civil servants are excited by the prospects of this event is a bit of an understatement. It has been the obsession of the whole State apparatus for well over a year, with Ministers and functionaries salivating at the glamour of facilitating EU Council meetings. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy McEntee, is even so excited that I believe she chose a logo that replicates, or is very similar to, her party logo. However, for people outside the EU political bubble, the Presidency is not that big of a deal. It is a bubble issue and it is projected to cost the taxpayer between €300 million and €400 million to accommodate the EU Presidency here. To put this in perspective, the Danish Presidency last year cost one fifth of that amount. Our previous Presidency 13 years ago in 2013, it cost €50 million, so it is a pretty extravagant increase in costs. The Government appears to be rolling out the red carpet for the EU, with hundreds of luxury vehicles purchased to ferry VIPs across the State with, no doubt, every effort being made to show them a good time. That is all well and good if the money is being used to get value from the Presidency but it is hard to see how we are going to get that sort of return from €300 million or €400 million. It seems extravagant.