Gilroy to lead drive to create 10,000 green jobs

CROKE PARK director Peter McKenna has revealed Dublin football manager Pat Gilroy as the man behind the GAA’s plans to spearhead an initiative which aims to create 10,000 sustainable jobs in Ireland by 2013.

Gilroy, managing director with energy management services company Dalkia, came up with the idea of using the GAA as a community conduit to make people aware of the ways in which they can cut their energy and waste costs.

In turn, the work needed to be carried out would require the employment of skilled workers such as engineers, planners and labourers. The initiative, which was first revealed by GAA president Christy Cooney in his Congress address last Saturday, already has a project manager and will shortly be launched.

It will also involve a TV programme where the best idea of sustaining resources will win a prize of a complete makeover for their area, be it a village, neighbourhood or street. McKenna explained the idea arose following discussions about what could be passed on from Croke Park’s success in becoming a carbon neutral venue as well as the first stadium in the world to receive the BSI 8901 environmental certificate.

“We asked ourselves could we not share some of the lessons we learned,” explained McKenna. “We talked it through with Sustainability Ireland and Pat Gilroy of Dalkia and really the spark for this has been Pat. His point was there are 450,000 people unemployed in Ireland, including Gaelic footballers and hurlers. We galvanise around the GAA community and it is such a resource. The GAA could act as the community conduit to look at sustainable environmental practice.

“The GAA would bring people together and see well if they did x, y and z with the school, the heating bill could be reduced substantially and there would be year one savings. The meaningful gain would be jobs but also real community value where a school is lagged or a church is lagged or has a water-saving device installed.”

In his speech in Mullingar, Cooney said the concept is for community clusters to come together and “collectively upgrade the energy performance, waste footprint and water usage of their homes, businesses and community buildings”.

McKenna insists the target of creating 10,000 new jobs is not outlandish. “We’d said we would put a meaningful target on to it — 10,000, which seems huge, but when you multiply up it’s not so outrageous. If it’s only half successful, we’ve made a massive transformational difference.”

Meanwhile, McKenna, who will take over Dermot Power’s commercial director brief in September, reported a positive first quarter report for Croke Park Teoranta, the stadium management company, largely helped by Dublin GAA’s Allianz Spring Series.

“Our numbers are in line with what we have budgeted. The footfall is higher than was expected but the spend per head is slightly less. That has balanced itself out. We’re pleased.”