Dublin City Council can’t afford to welcome Ireland’s Olympic heroes home

at the risk of being lynched i am ecstatic the overhyped flag waving rip off boring commercialised rip off muscly steroid fueled boring thing is over,the Romans used to do things like this to keep the plebs happy and take their minds off the fact there was no bread,vastly over budget,how could it be costed at 2.5 billion and rise to god knows how much,well in excess of 12 billion and rising and the country is supposed to be broke,easy when you just print more useless paper and will cause hyper inflation,and the hypocrisy of it all,this from a country that sold off all the school playing fields to speculative builders.and there is more,how do these people live,having to eat special foods and train,who pays them,why havent they got properjobs,and who gives a toss if they break some record by 1millionth of a bloody minisecond,and havent they ever heard of the internal combustion engine,all that sweaty activity,crazy,apart from not wanting to turn into a porker WHY?ALL THAT MONEY COULD HAVE MADE A GREAT LONDON GRANd PRIX TRACK,with a load of peddling little lycra louts,bankers and mps on bikes forced on to the track at the same time,now that would be worth watching,and where did all the gold for the medals come from,i thought Gordon brown sold it all for peanuts,good rant that.

Georgy woundedknee with another pearl of stupidity

it was embarrassing when the Greeks took to the streets with banners reading "Its not the Irish you`re dealing with" when protesting against their own Gov.

I'll never understand the Irish. They go crazy to "celebrate" fairly modest sporting achievements, such as a few Olympic medals or not winning a game in a soccer torunament. They'll hit the streets in their tens of thousands whoopin' and hollerin'. But when it comes to protesting the disgraceful way they have been bullied by the EU, ripped off by their own governments, and defrauded by their gangster capitalist class, you'd find it hard to scratch together a crowd of 300. The Irish--they deserve their own misfortunes.

Whereas -Northern Ireland have their celebrations well in hand according to the BBC and Belfast Telegraph. Olympic bronze medal winners Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan will be officially welcomed back HOME ( note that Team Ireland winners and are being celebrated at HOME in Belfast) at Titanic Centre Belfast later at 17:30 BST. Today.

Dublin city council seems to have money to send the councilors on overseas "fact finding" trips,how mean can they be!!

The most important celebration will still be held in Bray, to honor our Gold medalist, the great Katie Taylor. Well done to Bray Town Council for organizing it

It is such a shame that there will be no real celebration for the Irish to bask in the glory of.Something like this does not happen everyday.This should have been planned out long ago.Maybe next time it will be.

@Woundedknee: Your reply to paolipete is typical of your foolish arrogance. Why don't you 'get your facts right'! There is no Team UK, it is called Team GB. I have to laugh when you say 'escape from your partitionist mindset', and then you add 'so typical of the Southern Irish'!

Hardly inspiring for any young up and coming athletes. These people have put at least 4 years hard work into representing their country. The least the country could now do is show their appreciation.Well done to each and every one of them. They done us proud as did all Irish supportes who attended the games

paolipete: You correctly mention the country (all Ireland) but get your facts straight and escape from your partitionist mindset, so typical of the Southern Irish. I looked this up and it turns put that five athletes from north of the border won medals. These were two boxers and three rowers who rowed for the UK. A Northern Ireland stallion, Utopia, was also on the gold medal winning British team in horse jumping.

There is no call for the negative comments re the performance of the Irish team at London 2012 in some of the postings below. They did themselves proud and recorded the teams best performance since Melbourne 1956. To put their achievements in perspective, the country [all island], with a population of 6 m won 5 medals. If the USA were as successful the medal count, based on population, would have been 262 [actual 104]. Credit where credit is deserved to all participants whether Irish or American for a wonderful feast of sport.

@Kinvara- Your comment/question is lost on woundedbollix/georgyboy and his other alts. He's an imbecile.

@Woundedknee: Ireland sent 66 athletes and secured 5 medals: 1 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze. Over 200 countries were represented and Ireland finished in 41st place ahead of countries like Argentina, India, Belgium etc. Indeed some countries didn't even win a single medal, despite being represented by larger teams. So why shouldn't we acknowledge the achievements of Team Ireland? Could you please explain what is wrong with people coming together and celebrating together? Would Ireland be a better place if such celebrations didn't happen?

I have the solution. Why doesn't American billionaire Chuck Feeney stump up for a million or so? After all, he funds all kinds of shadowy organizations in Ireland. Let him put his money to some decent purpose for a change.