Walsh aims to keep development going

MUNSTER Council chairman Sean Walsh believes a motion to go before Tipperary GAA convention seeking to defer all major structural developments at national and provincial level, is “a sledgehammer approach”.

Both the Cork and Kerry county boards have ambitious plans to respectively redevelop Páirc Uí Chaoimh and construct an inter-county training facility at Currans near Farranfore. Yet Mid-Tipperary club Moyne-Templetuohy are proposing to county convention that all major projects be deferred and money instead be redirected towards assisting clubs experiencing financial problems. However, Walsh insists that once projects are properly structured and costed, they should proceed.

Walsh said: “We need to look at all physical developments across the whole GAA. But there are some projects that just can’t be cut. I believe that [the motion] is a sledgehammer approach to the issue. You can’t penalise the clubs and counties that have been prudent and now have the money to do their work. They can go ahead with their projects. Everything will have to be on a phased and structured basis. It’ll also have to be well costed because it’s all about the income and expenditure now at club, county and provincial level. If we don’t charge the same gate entries for instance at provincial level, then we can’t give out the same amounts of money that we have been to clubs.”

Walsh has cited the Kerry project in Currans as one that needs to progress in 2012, with the Munster Council having already committed €1 million to the development.

“There is a need for it to go ahead for a number of reasons. Clubs at the moment are stretched as it is with their own grounds and all Kerry teams are training from the month of January on, and they’re looking for club grounds in that time.

“You look all over the country and there are counties everywhere with top-of-the-range facilities where they train their inter-county teams and they feed them, along with having their gyms for physical training. That’s a natural progression for Kerry and I think the money is going to have to be found somewhere to get that project off the ground.”