One key question resonates in Cork GAA bank accounts mystery: How?

How could an organisation on its uppers since the rebuild of Páirc Ui Chaoimh be blissfully unaware that the better part of two hundred grand was in  seven accounts?

How could an organisation on its uppers since the rebuild of Páirc Ui Chaoimh be blissfully unaware that the better part of two hundred grand was in two blocks and seven accounts in total?

In all the head-scratching, eye-rolling and bellyaching about the neglected €176,000 in two bank accounts that Cork GAA executives are only familiarising themselves with in recent weeks, one question retains absolute primacy.

How?

How could an organisation on its uppers since the rebuild of Páirc Ui Chaoimh be blissfully unaware that the better part of two hundred grand was in two blocks and seven accounts in total? One is almost tempted to say ‘sitting’ in the account but regular transactions are being conducted in some of the current accounts. Someone is administering the income and spend, and also presumably in receipt of bank statements for the Hurley and Helmet Scheme.

Some form of explanation was forthcoming Friday night in a detailed response from Cork CEO Kevin O’Donovan and chairman Marc Sheehan to the Irish Examiner. It was confirmed that 'based on custom and practice', the accounts were deemed separate to Cork County Board monies, even though they were ‘appropriately administered for the purposes intended, by the individuals responsible.

The statement says the motivation was to “ring-fence” the money from the day-to-day running of the County Board. However, it admits things will change in the wake of the revelations: “This (ring-fencing) could have been better achieved by having specific sub-accounts within Cork County Board’s financial statements, ring-fenced for the stated specific purposes and in that way greater transparency would have been achieved.” 

Reaction to tonight’s Irish Examiner revelations will be instructive. There will be so many who will roll their eyes and attribute it, again, to a peculiar Cork GAA penchant for own goals. Others will concede it as a cock-up in governance, but how bad when you discover almost €180,000 you didn’t know was there at all? The latter view, however, may have to get in line for a while as questions continue.

At its most elemental, it’s a knock-back to the efforts to professionalise Cork GAA, a blow to the solar plexus for those striving hard - and making headway – in making it a progressive and attractive entity to sponsors and commercial partners. 

So back to the ‘how’ of it all. It is worth stating there is no suggestion of any impropriety or misappropriation of the funds. Everything appears to be in order in relation to the deposits and withdrawals on the accounts. However, it beggars belief that someone on executives - past or present - who has facilitated activity on the account hasn’t brought it to the notice of his or her colleagues.

Is it feasible that this is down to an inexplicable lack of communication at the highest level of Cork GAA?

Another issue: If the accounts are in the name of Cork GAA, how and why have they not appeared on the end-of-year financial report presented to delegates at Convention. The board’s auditors would, using all reasonable procedures, conduct a thorough search for unrecorded assets and liabilities as part of their end-of-year audit testing. But ultimately, they can only interrogate the accounts presented to them.

From the offices in Páirc Ui Chaoimh comes the mea culpa of ‘collective culpability’ and one hardly has to imagine strained conversations already amongst the executive and the recently formed ‘One Cork’ group, that features the sort of business leaders who tend to respond to this sort of gaffe with the old Haughey-ism: If you can’t find the door, just take the f*cking window’.

In last night’s statement, it is explained how the Hurleys and Helmets scheme worked: GAA clubs and schools paid Cork GAA €35 per helmet. This money was lodged in bulk lodgements made up of separate payments from the various GAA Clubs. Cork GAA paid Mycro €45 per helmet. In certain years, around 2,000 helmets were being processed through the Scheme for the clubs and schools who availed of it. Croke Park provided an annual subsidy, which was initially €45,000 per annum, reduced to €36,000 per annum, but has now ceased, based on the financial challenges arising from Covid-19.

Once the executive branch was made aware of the issue in mid-April, a series of steps were necessary, protocol and otherwise, before it would reach the floor of the County Board next month. However, with a statement now issued to clubs, that timeline will be expedited with a detailed explanation now planned for the monthly county board meeting next Tuesday. For all the answers that the executive has provided, there’s no indication that it will head off as many questions as everyone invested in Cork GAA tries to get to the bottom of this extraordinary episode.