Kettle: Funding cut plan ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’

Dublin chairman Andy Kettle insists the county will strongly resist any attempts to cut its funding and redistribute it to other counties.

Kettle confirmed the Irish Examiner’s story from last week on a GAA report into how funding of counties could be better managed which suggested a reduction in what Dublin receive. GAA president Liam O’Neill admitted in the wake of Dublin’s new multi-million euro sponsorship deal with AIG last October that, ‘it may well change our thinking on how we finance counties, across the board, to equalise things’.

Kettle revealed that included in the current report is a suggestion that a special €1m payment, ring fenced for the promotion of Gaelic games in Dublin — provided for by the Irish Sports Council but distributed by the GAA — be broken up and partly diverted elsewhere.

The Dublin chief said he accepted that ‘weaker counties should get more help’ but claimed the proposal was that this be done at the expense of money which is badly needed in the capital.

“Why rob Peter to pay Paul?” asked Kettle. “To me, there could be some other areas of the association where budgets could be trimmed a little bit to fund that, as distinct from taking away from something that is successful.”

Kettle revealed the timeline of events with regard to the new report.

“Last Friday week, a document was released to counties at lunchtime indicating what funds were going to come to any particular county,” he said.

“It didn’t give an awful lot of time to study the document because there was a meeting called for the Saturday to go through it.

“Our county secretary attended that meeting and highlighted the fact that Dublin were the only county that had a potential cut. That cut would have in the coaching and games area and it would also have been contained in the proposal that Fingal would not be treated as a county for their share of the national league fund.”

The meeting that Dublin secretary John Costello spoke at was attended by county board secretaries and treasurers. Kettle said the €1m Sports Council funding deal was struck eight years ago.

“It was during Bertie Ahern’s time as Taoiseach,” said Kettle. “The problem we do have is why take from what is ours to give to somebody else?”

Kettle gave a detailed outline of how Dublin GAA distributes all of its funding and insisted their bottom line figure each year is modest. “Look at Dublin accounts for the last number of years, it’s barely breaking even. Either a little bit above or a little bit below. It’s not as if we’re building a war chest. So any taking of funds will affect our bottom line.”

Kettle said that Dublin ‘are certainly going to fight’ the proposals. He pointed to the fact that the second All-Ireland football semi-final involving Dublin this weekend will bring in 30,000 more fans than the Kerry versus Mayo game last Sunday.

“What we would look for is recognition of the support and the money that is generated from a Dublin point of view,” said Kettle.