Last call for GAA drink link

THE GAA yesterday unveiled a detailed and ambitious plan to combat the growing abuse of alcohol and substance abuse.

The recommendations of a task force headed by former Galway hurler Joe Connolly followed a year of consultation with the government, health boards, and its clubs throughout the country.

In a wide-ranging report, the task force calls for the ending of alcohol sponsorship deals with the association; the appointment of a full-time official to promote a healthy approach to drink, and a code of conduct to be established and implemented.

Amongst the proposals was the ambition that: “cups should not be filled with any alcoholic drink by successful GAA teams at any level.”

The issue of whether sporting organisations should continue to accept sponsorship money from the alcohol industry has grown in profile and controversy in recent years and the GAA were incensed by being, they believed, unfairly singled out over the matter by one government minister.

“The easiest thing for me and the GAA to have done last year was to say we won’t renew the Guinness sponsorship, full stop,” GAA president Seán Kelly said at yesterday’s launch.

“Everyone, from the highest political people on down, would have said well done to the GAA. But what difference would it have made in reality?

“We were the first organisation to ban smoking sponsorship and did it make one bit of difference in the overall context? Smoking increases and we banned it 30 years ago. The exact same would have happened if we’d just ended drinks sponsorship and done nothing else.

“There’s a whole EU-wide situation as well and that has to be looked at. Ultimately, we will do what is right for our members and for society.”

Yesterday’s report is certainly a move in that direction and it is also the more difficult of the two roads the GAA could have chosen to take on the thorny issue.

“It is crisis time. It is stop the madness time,” said Connolly. “Only the health professionals, the Department of Health and medical authorities have up to now really shouted at the community to stop this madness going on. Now we want the GAA to join this shout.

“We have made a strong recommendation on alcohol sponsorship and I don’t think we could do anymore on it, to be honest. I don’t think there’s anymore a task force can do. It’s there in black and white.

“We have recommended that sponsorship by alcohol companies and pubs in the GAA be phased out. We will leave that to the wisdom of the GAA to implement in their own time scale. We believe that there is a growing culture of being aware of our responsibility that it may be time for the GAA to have a policy on this.

“Ultimately, Guinness being a drinks brand probably isn’t compatible, in the long run, with the GAA, But I certainly wouldn’t underestimate what they’ve done for hurling.”

This report will be implemented by a full-time officer, appointed by the GAA, who will work in co-ordination with the gardaí, medical staff and social workers. Voluntary officers will also be chosen in every county and club to act on these centrally designed awareness and education programmes.

Another part of the campaign will involve a video to be distributed to clubs and schools with established GAA stars warning against the dangers of alcohol and substance abuse.

“The number of players we have who don’t drink and never drank would astound you,” said Kelly. “There were six of the players playing for Ireland last year in Australia that never drank. We’re not saying that we expect everyone in the country not to drink. We just want a more responsible attitude to it.”

Connolly spoke eloquently of the culture in the GAA where underage players were constantly exposed to a drinking environment at functions and after games, a culture, he said, that has to be eradicated.

The report also recommends that GAA bars should promote practices such as serving food.

In addition to chairman Joe Connolly, the task force members include Michael Whelan of Guinness; Noreen Doherty, Donegal County Secretary; Timothy Maher, the Primary Schools representative on Central Council; John Lonergan, governor of Mountjoy Prison; Colm Jordan, former president of the Union of Students of Ireland, and DJ Carey.