The question as to whether the Government should chip in another €30 million to support the Ryder Cup at Adare Manor in Limerick in 2027 is a valid one. For a start, it is a lot of money. Not in the context of the €115 billion the Government spends each year, perhaps. But definitely in the context of a budget next month that will see the withdrawal of temporary cost-of-living measures. The timing is terrible.

However, the Government has no real choice but to double down on the Ryder Cup. It essentially signed a blank cheque back in 2019 when the then minister for transport, tourism and sport, Shane Ross, announced the agreement with the Professional Golf Association (PGA) of the European Tour.

The details of the agreement were not disclosed at the time because they were “commercially sensitive for the European Tour”. But we were told they included licence fees, investment in Irish golf tour events and marketing, and a commitment to “support the event through the provision of local authority and public services such as policing and transport”.

This apparently open-ended commitment was justified by “a pre-event economic impact study” commissioned by Fáilte Ireland which predicted it would be worth between €161 million and €190 million to the economy.

Committed Government expenditure to date related to........

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