Madam, - A letter in your edition of July 26th from Liam Holton, sales and marketing director of Punchestown Racecourse and Event Centre asserts that I made factually incorrect comment about the programme of events at Punchestown at the Public Accounts Committee meeting of July 21st.
The source of my information was the Punchestown website, www.punchestown.com. This website lists the following events from April 7th, 2005 to the end of 2005: Our House & Garden Exhibition; Volkswagen Car Show; Musgraves Christmas Confectionery Show; Irish Commercial Truck Show; Oxegen Rock Concert; Kildare Growers Show; Corry Homebuilding Show; Nelton Woodworking Ireland Exhibition; Musgraves Chilled Food Show; and McCann McGuirk Christmas Show.
Only one of these, the Kildare Growers Show, is connected with agriculture.
As the principal justification for establishing the event centre was that it would be a key piece of infrastructure for the agri-industry and would showcase the excellence of both Irish horses and cattle, it seems to me that the events listed do not stand up that case. Mr Holton's letter includes some events which are Punchestown Racecourse events rather than events at the Event Centre.
Maybe the Punchestown website is incorrect and significant agricultural events have been omitted. If this is so, Mr Holton should ensure that the website is corrected. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL NOONAN, TD, Chairman, Public Accounts Committee, Dáil Éireann, Dublin 2.