GAA grant set to cost other Irish sports dear
Friday December 21 2007
GAELIC players look set to get their government grants quicker than they expected in a big pre-Christmas boost but several other Irish sporting bodies are muttering ‘bah humbug’ after discovering their grant aid in 2008 is being frozen.
With the Beijing Games just eight months away, many sports expected their government funding next year to be improved, as is the norm in an Olympic year.
But despite an extra allocation of €3.3m to the Irish Sports Council (ISC) in the recent Budget, none of it is going to fund Irish international sport and it has been set aside for the new GAA players grant scheme.
Ireland’s traditionally successful Olympic sports like athletics, rowing, boxing and cycling have been forewarned that their 2007 ‘high performance’ budgets will not be improved in the 2008 allocations.
The Sports Council says this is because of the economic climate and a slow-down in public funding.
But there is serious disquiet among other sports that they are not getting their usual increase in an Olympic year while, at the same time, €3.5m has been found to placate the GAA and players.
Athletics Ireland’s Olympic team manager Patsy McGonagle said: "My understanding is that athletics will only get the same as last year – maybe marginally less – because the grants to GAA players will come out of the same ‘high performance’ pool.
“We are not the only ones going to be affected,” he added. “The whole international dimension is going to be affected by the grants to GAA players.”
Neither the GAA or GPA expected their new grant scheme to be up and running until the 2009 Championship but it emerged yesterday that the Sports Council hope to have it up and running for the coming Championship.
