Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 2 October 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children

Concussion in Sport: Discussion

11:40 am

Photo of Marc MacSharryMarc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What is specifically meant by rehabilitation services after concussion? What are the next steps for ABII on the educational awareness side? Who funds the organisation? How much of Ms O'Connell and Ms Boyle's time is dedicated to fund-raising? This is not specifically related to the issue at hand but I am curious to know how much time is wasted, so to speak, keeping the lights on rather than doing the work?

For the witnesses in the football and sports medicine side, I was at an under-10s training session for the GAA recently, watching parents scolding children for crying when injured. I did not know if there was a doctor around, although there were perhaps 200 or 300 children there on that Saturday morning. Is there any onus on the GAA or the FAI to have a doctor present when training is taking place or, for the younger age groups, when a blitz rather than a one-off match is taking place? Are there any existing regulations which insist on this, or ought there to be ones? I do not think there are. We seem to have defibrillators everywhere now, thankfully. Do we need to have a physician present every time we are playing any kind of contact sport, whether it is children or adults? As Dr. Byrne mentioned, the League of Ireland has to have Civil Defence or Order of Malta on hand with an ambulance and personnel. Does that need to be done? I apologise that I will have to excuse myself after those answers.

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