Amid all the ballyhoo about golf’s Ryder Cup coming to Ireland — its status, commercial value and the prospects for Irish tourism — it is worth recalling the last time a similar circus came to town. Think back to 1998, when almost every politician and business interest group risked serious injury in the rush to welcome the cyclists of the Tour de France before they set off from Dublin.

It wasn’t just the excitement of having cycling’s most glamorous event on our doorstep that provoked acclaim, it was more the commercial possibilities. Every time an international event is staged in this country, some expert estimates the benefit to the economy.

In the case of the Tour de France, we were treated to the usual guff about the event being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to promote Ireland as a tourist destination, ignoring the fact that the country’s charms had already been flogged to death during four overhyped Eurovision song contests. The government used taxpayers’ money to pay the Tour’s organisers to start the race in Ireland, giving a subsidy to what is essentially a healthy business venture that can support itself.

Those of us who questioned the morality of the Tour de France as a sporting event and the appropriateness of bringing it to Ireland were regarded as unpatriotic. We were told we weren’t taking the wider economic considerations into account. We didn’t “understand” that being given a part of the cycling action “put us on the map”.

Yet our complaints were well founded. Those with only a passing interest in the sport probably had some inkling that illegal drug use had pushed the performances of some cyclists beyond credible limits in the preceding years. We felt this was a corrupt sport, with widespread cheating; one that should be condemned and discarded, not feted.

So I admit it was a case of schadenfreude when the news came through that one of the leading teams in the tournament had been caught on its return to France with a cabinet laden with a selection of performance-enhancing drugs. It was the beginning of the end for an event whose sporting currency has since been devalued to the point of worthlessness. And nobody has produced any evidence suggesting that the tourist boom this country enjoyed in the past decade can be attributed to hosting the opening of the Tour in 1998.

Gay Mitchell’s efforts notwithstanding, we’ve never got within an ass’s roar of hosting that other racket, the Olympics. Like cycling, athletics has become a bad joke. Our only Olympic swimming champion, Michelle Smith de Bruin, was subsequently banned for tampering with a urine sample.

Even the horses are at it, as we know from the loss of Ireland’s only Athens gold medal when Cian O’Connor’s mount Waterford Crystal was disqualified. Despite this sordid record, John O’Donoghue, the arts, sports and tourism minister, was gushing last week about the “golden opportunity” for Ireland to piggyback on London’s hosting of the 2012 games.

The minister has set up a taskforce to identify and maximise the opportunities, believing that our proximity to Britain means we can busy ourselves promoting Ireland as a tourism location while the athletes do their stuff in London.

O’Donoghue also wants to encourage Irish business to get involved in Olympic construction projects and to provide services for the event. As if the builders and caterers of Ireland are waiting around for a government quango to tell them how to make money.

This gap between reality and the hype-induced statements of government ministers is encapsulated in O’Donoghue’s belief that a strategy to link this country with the London Olympics will also encourage the nation’s youth to take up sport.

It might do, were it not for the fact that the country suffers a serious deficit when it comes to basic sports facilities in schools and local communities.

While this government has invested heavily in sports infrastructure — compared to the pathetic efforts of the past when spending was left to the voluntary sector and the GAA, in particular — the availability of playing pitches, swimming pools, indoor facilities, gyms and changing rooms is still well below par.

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