Mr. Páraic Duffy:

As director general of the GAA, I thank the members of the committee for giving me the opportunity to discuss the implications of possible legislation banning alcohol sponsorship for major sporting events. I also wish to update the committee on the education process the GAA has already undertaken on the matter of alcohol abuse in this country.

The GAA is a community-based, volunteer organisation promoting Gaelic games, culture and lifelong participation. It has over 2,500 clubs, 302 of which are international, and almost 20,000 teams engaged in competition in Ireland. In 2012, 82,000 children participated in our summer camps while more than 1.3 million supporters attended our intercounty championship matches. Volunteers are the bedrock of the association. The GAA accounts for 42% of sports volunteering in Ireland, with the total economic value of GAA volunteering estimated at approximately €112 million per annum. Revenue generated centrally allows the deployment of 317 games development personnel across the GAA to support our volunteers. Last year, €10 million was invested in games development and 84% of total revenue went back to clubs and counties. Our clubs provide games for over 300,000 registered players.

In 2012, the country's difficult economic and financial situation continued to be the dominant context and primary consideration for much of the GAA's planning and operational activities and in dealing with the direct consequences of the reduction in our income. Many of our counties and clubs struggled and continue to struggle under worrying levels of debt. Funding sources are fewer and yield less revenue than before. Of the GAA's overall funding, 33% comes from commercial revenue, which means that sponsorship is a very important funding stream.

The GAA is totally committed, through the promotion of its sports, to the development of healthy lifestyles and healthy attitudes to alcohol. We accept that there are issues around the misuse of alcohol, particularly by young people, and that these issues must be addressed. While the GAA will play a full part in trying to develop a more responsible attitude to the use of alcohol, there is no hard evidence to demonstrate that a ban on sports sponsorship will have any impact in reducing the misuse of alcohol. The GAA's approach to tackling the harm caused by the misuse of alcohol is clear and proactive. It is based around education and it uses a settings-based educational and intervention programme - one of the approaches recommended by the World Health Organization and the HSE - to deliver on that approach.

The GAA's alcohol and substance abuse prevention programme, which is known as ASAP, was set up in 2006 on foot of a recommendation by a GAA task force brought together to explore how the misuse of alcohol was impacting negatively on GAA members and the wider population. ASAP is a joint initiative with the HSE and is unique in the Irish sporting context. Its aim is to minimise the harm caused by the misuse of alcohol and other substances. It utilises the reach of the GAA network into every community in Ireland to deliver a comprehensive programme covering elements of education, prevention and response to alcohol-related issues. Best-practice policies and resources, including an educational DVD, website, a drug and alcohol policy template for clubs and an extensive ASAP manual, are available to all members and clubs. The programme mirrors the structures used for all GAA activities from games and coaching to integration and inclusion, with ASAP co-ordinators in place at club, county, provincial and national levels of the association. The ASAP national committee consists of 32 county officers and four provincial officers and is chaired by a member of the HSE drugs service. Under the GAA strategic vision and action plan, all GAA clubs have been tasked with appointing a club ASAP officer. To date, approximately 1,400 ASAP officers have been appointed and more than 700 clubs have adopted a drug and alcohol policy.

Training in drug and alcohol awareness is rolled out across all levels of the association, with coaches, parents and club and county officers as frequent participants. The process has generated many successful partnerships with agencies that share a common goal in reducing the misuse of alcohol, including Foróige, An Garda Síochána, local drugs task forces, community groups and second and third level schools and colleges. The programme continues to grow in its scope and design. In January 2012, the GAA introduced the innovative health challenge "Off the Booze and on the Ball", which asked members to abstain from alcohol for the month in order to kick-start the new year on a healthy footing. In 2012, we also saw the roll-out of a unique training programme for GAA coaches and ASAP officers called "Brief Interventions". A brief intervention is a short, structured, supportive conversation designed to assist someone, identified as drinking in a harmful way, to make a positive change in his or her behaviour and attitude towards alcohol. One county from each province - Armagh, Roscommon, Longford and Clare - participated in the pilot with additional training having occurred in Kerry, Dublin, Galway, Monaghan and Cavan subsequently. The brief-intervention model was designed and delivered by HSE professionals who have previously acted as ASAP officers in their respective clubs. The success of the ASAP programme over the last seven years has led to an expansion of the agreement with the health sector. This resulted in the launch this month by our president, Liam O'Neill, and Tony Holohan, the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health, of the GAA healthy-club project which will assist clubs and their communities to respond to health needs in a holistic way at grassroots level.

In summary, the GAA has in place an extensive alcohol education programme, the experience of which we are keen to share with other sporting organisations. The elimination of alcohol sponsorship from sport will deliver no real benefits. It will simply increase financial pressures on sporting bodies and their clubs. We firmly believe the solution lies in a renewed focus on educating our population to adopt more positive attitudes to the use of alcohol and legislation to make access to alcohol more difficult and expensive for young people. The GAA will continue to be proactive in educating our members on the use of alcohol. The support of Government for that policy will be far more effective than the imposition of any ban on alcohol sponsorship in sport.