Ireland Is Fuming After Garth Brooks Cancels Major Comeback Concerts, Costing Dublin $68 Million

Over 400,000 Garth Brooks fans in Dublin, Ireland are peeved today after the country singer backed out of a long anticipated, five-show "Comeback Special" after the city council denied to approve permits for two of the concerts.

Brooks was scheduled to play July 25-29 at Dublin's 83,000-capacity Croke Park Stadium, but the city council only approved Friday, Saturday and Sunday shows.

Licenses for Monday and Tuesday night concerts were rejected because the city noted the stadium was "in a heavily populated residential area" and five nights of concerts would be "an over intensification of use of the stadium."

Brooks released a statement saying he would only "play five shows or none at all," explaining that "To choose which shows to do and which shows not to do, would be like asking to choose one child over another."

While Ticketmaster will honor refunds for the 400,000 tickets purchased, the city of Dublin is out about $68 million fom the botched deal, Irish senator Averil Power told FOX411.

A spokeswoman for the Dublin Chamber of Commerce also told the LA Times that the cost to the city of canceling the concerts would be 50 million euros, or about $68 million.

The concert was expected to pump millions back into the local economy, which has been in a recession since the 2008 financial crisis.

"The cancelation of the concerts has been a massive disappointment to the Garth Brooks fans here, and it's also been a disaster for the city of Dublin," Senator Power added.

Due to 22 truckloads of equipment, customized video equipment, and a large set, the concerts couldn't be moved to another venue in Dublin.

Ireland Councillor Nial Ring tells Fox that Brooks' decision to cancel all five shows was for the singer's own financial reasons:

"Garth Brooks hasn't been here in 17 years and if he loves his Irish fans then why is he pulling out of these concerts?" Ring asked. "He says it's because he doesn't want to disappoint some fans but quite frankly, I don't buy that. I have no doubt that his accountants and the money people behind him had done the numbers and I believe he would have made money [from fewer shows]. Three would have been enough and the five would have been enough to pay off the national debt of Ireland."

But a source argues to The Daily Mail:

"When Garth was told that there was going to be five dates, he decided to pump money into the production for the live shows ... Every cent that he would have made from the first three nights was ploughed straight into the staging, the lighting and the rigging. He had ordered graphics and custom-built screens. It was going to be a show of a lifetime and all 400,000 fans were going to see something special.

'This has nothing to do with greed for Garth. This has to do with a decision he made to put on a series of concerts that would have been unrivaled in the history of country music. He is not a charity and for these gigs to have made money, he would have had to play the five dates."

Concert promoter Peter Aiken is quoted in the Daily Mail as defending Brooks for "sticking by his principles."

"It's the right decision. We are devastated, it was going to be the biggest musical event, there will never be another artist in my lifetime that's going to do 400,000 tickets and I don't know where the position is with Garth Brooks coming back to Ireland. There will be flak, you'll take flak, I'll take the flak but it's the right decision. He is devastated, he's down for millions in this deal, if it was any other artist maybe they'd say let's play the three and recoup some money."