O’Neill: GAA will resist paying for grant scheme

GAA President Liam O’Neill insists the association will resist picking up the tab for the player grants scheme if the Government pulls its funding.

Junior Sports Minister Michael Ring admitted recently that some form of cut to the scheme currently valued at just over €1m will be announced in next week’s budget.

He said he was still prepared to “do a deal” with the GAA but conceded it was a hard sell to his Government colleagues and he couldn’t give any guarantees about its future.

From the outset of the scheme in 2008, both the GAA and the Gaelic Players Association were adamant that the amateur organisation would never be forced to fund the grants.

That agreement was made back when €3.5m in Government funding was available and despite the subsequent cuts and the current uncertainty over the scheme, O’Neill insisted yesterday that the accord still holds good.

Asked if the GAA will step in should the Government pull out, O’Neill replied: “That’s dealt with. In the original agreement, it was dealt with and that’s where it is. That was always the position.”

On the issue of potential pressure coming on the association to carry the can in the event of a Government withdrawal, O’Neill said simply: “I can’t predict that”.

However, the Laois man did reveal his disappointment that the scheme, initially devised by the GPA on the back of separate grants and tax breaks being afforded to other elite athletes, is once again under pressure.

“It was off the agenda for a number of years and I don’t welcome it back on the agenda,” he said.

“It looks like sport is going to be cut and it’s not just sport, you see schools being cut too. We need to make choices in this country and sport is being cut and it is a pity.

“In Europe, the local authority provides sporting facilities as a matter of course. They don’t have to go and fundraise like we do. Municipal authorities do that. But it’s different here.”

Individual grants of up to around €900 will shortly be paid out to the inter-county playing base for 2012. It’s well down on the payments made under the original scheme in 2008, though Mayo footballer Cillian O’Connor said it’s still a significant and much-needed end-of-year boost.

“For students, especially, it is a huge help,” said O’Connor. “Hopefully it will keep coming because if it is cut, there will be a lot of disappointed, maybe upset GAA players around the country. (Playing) is something you do voluntarily. You are not being paid. It is an amateur sport. But the grants show respect for what you’re doing but when it’s cut, it’s a blow. It’s disappointing.”

All-Ireland final attacker O’Connor, a student at St Pat’s College in Drumcondra, is currently recovering from a dislocated shoulder suffered in a club league game shortly after Mayo’s defeat to Donegal.

“I’ll go back into full contact in mid-January and if there’s no setbacks, then hopefully I’ll be back playing games by the start or middle of February,” he added.

O’Connor and O’Neill were speaking at yesterday’s launch of the Newstalk-sponsored GAA Annual Games Development Conference, which takes place on January 12 at Croke Park.

Meanwhile, GAA Head of Games Development, Pat Daly, has not ruled out the idea of moving the age limit for the minor grade from 18 to 17. Daly was among the long list of officials, players and management recently interviewed by Eugene McGee’s Football Review Committee who will shortly report back with a wide-ranging dossier containing potential changes to the game.

“What we would be looking at would be underage development and the critical area there is the minor player,” said Daly. “What we have discovered is that 90% of people who do the Leaving Cert today are 18 and that means there is a big issue around transition and ensuring that there isn’t a conflict between sport and education. We’re not proposing that any competition be done away with, what we are proposing is that the thing be streamlined.”