Kate Hoey: It is troubling that a Labour prime minister is making the republican demand for Casement stadium a priority

This comes a few days after another report that the prime minister’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, had taken a special interest in what is essentially a republican demand for some £300 million to be pumped into a privately owned sportsground that will host no football games after the Euros.

It is ten months since the announcement that Euro 28 would be hosted jointly by the football associations of the UK and Ireland, and that Casement Park in Northern Ireland would host five matches.

In 2011, football, rugby and the GAA were all allocated a sum of money to upgrade their stadiums, Windsor Park, Ravenhill and Casement respectively. Football was awarded £29 million for the refurbishment of the national stadium at Windsor Park.

Northern Ireland, like the rest of the UK, faces a crisis in public services. Health, education, social care and policing are all under huge budgetary pressure.

So most people find it perplexing and concerning that the self-confessed priority of the new Labour government should be spending hundreds of millions on Casement — not to the original specification and standard agreed as part of a balanced package but a much enhanced stadium with all the extra requirements from Uefa.

About 8,000 seats are to be included in the stadium build, only to be ripped out once the Euros end.

The IFA (the governing body for Northern Ireland football) primarily in the shape of their chief executive entered into the agreement to host 2028 with little support from fans of the national team.

The costs were said to be around £110 million but now with no contractor in place, estimates are £300 million-plus. This excludes policing costs which will amount to a minimum of £17 million, as reported to the Policing Board this week.

All big sporting events that the UK hosts are aimed at leaving a legacy for the sport. That is what all sports ministers fight hard to achieve. Yet there will be no legacy for Northern Ireland football at any level as Casement Park after the Euros will still be owned by the GAA, bringing in substantial profits from hosting concerts as well as all-Ireland fixtures.

No wonder that many football people in Northern Ireland believe that the Euros is only a flag of convenience for the GAA, who see it as an opportunity to get Casement Park built at its hugely inflated cost with a small contribution from them despite being the richest sporting body in Ireland.

Sadly, we can’t ignore the politically divisive nature of both this particular project and the GAA itself, which continues to name grounds and trophies after former IRA terrorists.

Casement Park is where two young British soldiers were stripped almost naked, thrown over the steep wall with their beaten bodies crashing on to the ground below.

They were then taken away and shot dead by the IRA — that act on its own will make it very uncomfortable for the most ardent supporters of football to attend at that venue.

It is astonishing that Sir Keir Starmer, who knows Northern Ireland well, having worked as a consultant to its police service, has joined a campaign led by many who have never ever been to a Northern Ireland international and have no interest in the game.

Not only is it financially irresponsible but amounts to clearly prioritising the political demands of one section of the community.

The unfairness of millions extra going to the GAA will not just be perceived as being unfair, it will sour relations with the many loyal Northern Ireland citizens who genuinely wished Labour well.

• Baroness Hoey is a former Labour MP and UK sports minister , who js now an independent peer. This article was written for The Times, and first published there