GAA’s Tom Ryan accused of ‘an unfair effort to sway democratic debate’ over funding

The framer of a motion to next month’s GAA congress has accused association Director General Tom Ryan of an “unfair effort to sway democratic debate”. Former Westmeath footballer John Connellan, who has been leading a campaign to revise the amount of funding being allocated to Dublin as part of a review of all games development grants, made the comments in a letter to Ryan, which was released to the media.

The communication also raises an issue with the GAA’s decision to rule out of order the original motion and allow only a few days to rectify it for congress. Connellan points out that he had requested last May a consultation with the Rules Advisory Committee for the purpose of ensuring the motion was correctly drafted.

“We find it entirely disingenuous and contrary to the democratic principles which are supposed to underpin the association to cite technical reasons to disallow the motion from debate at congress in light of a request made directly to the Árd Stiúrthóir eight months ago to prevent this very situation from transpiring.”

This request was however declined, as the role of the RAC was stated to be to advise counties rather than clubs.

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Accusations of unfairness relate to requests for data on funding in order to inform arguments on the motion. According to Connellan, this has not been forthcoming and what was produced had been “subject to completely unacceptable delay”.

He continues: “It was with great surprise that on the eve of county conventions across the country your offices issued correspondence to county board management committees indicating that you are conducting a ‘review’ of games and development funding, which incorporated many of the principles which we have been advocating for over the last 18 months (i.e. self-sustainability of stronger units, business case analysis etc.).

“We were extremely disappointed that this correspondence and details around the proposed review were not shared with our group of GAA volunteers who have been campaigning, advocating and working in this area for almost 2 years now.

“Undoubtedly, this was a last ditch attempt to by your office to disrupt healthy and meaningful debate and stymie a motion relating to an issue which clearly has resonated with the GAA community across the country.

“You have had my email address, my phone number and my willingness to engage with you for in excess of 18 months. This correspondence issued on the eve of county conventions in an effort to sway democratic debate was uncalled for and entirely unfair.”

The motion, which has the support of a number of county conventions, Westmeath, Roscommon, Galway, Mayo and Tyrone, has until this Thursday to be put in order.

Connellan has repeated his request for consultation with the RAC, asking for a Zoom meeting should there be any further technical issues with the wording.

It is intended to provide a two-pronged remedy for the situation at present: basing development funds on registered membership numbers and allowing counties to submit a ‘business case’ for funding, which would “redress the imbalance that has manifested over the last 15 years”.