Mr. Liam O'Neill:

I will put into context some of Mr. Duffy's comments about the games. The Continental Youth Championships in the United States are an absolutely huge event. Americans like to plan a year in advance. They do not take holidays at short notice so they already have their flights booked for San Francisco. They have their holidays built around it. Irish families will go to San Francisco to take part in the games. They will take it very seriously because Americans take sport seriously. It is unlike in Ireland; in America one plays to win. It is difficult for us to understand that at times. They are driven by participation in sport and success in sport. It is heartwarming to see so many people descending with camper vans. In Randall's Island in New York this year there was a whole tented village. Each club brings its own tent or has a tent provided for it. It is their base for the week. They have hotels booked. There is a huge family atmosphere. Something that we would not experience in Ireland. I think the Americanisation of the Irish and the organisation that Americans bring just brings the thing to a different level. It is really heartwarming to go and see it. It is staggering that they play 550 games on 17 pitches over four days. Even with the North American finals for adults the first game of the morning can start at 7.30. I would not like to try to organise a Laois Junior B final for 7.30 in the morning but that is the way they do it. They just go and do what has to be done.

In Asia at the Asian games people came from all over Asia at their own expense. Singapore brought 11 teams, more than 220 people, to participate in the Asian games in Kuala Lumpur. It is just mind boggling at times. They play short sided games because of the heat and they have to organise hydration. It is really well organised. People fly in for the games.

The interesting thing about the Asian games, which is increasingly happening now, is the fact that we are now linking our games and GAA people with business. This is a huge step forward. I have attended the Asia Pacific Ireland Business Forum both in Croke Park and Kuala Lumpur and to see the business people interacting is fantastic. We have now a situation where people are saying, "We are there, we are involved in business, why not do business amongst ourselves, why not find better leads for Ireland, why not just get more business done?" A significant thing too is that because of our partnership with ConnectIreland we now reach out to a huge number of people and get people to sign up, people who are working abroad or working in companies that are thinking of locating to Europe. ConnectIreland's message is: "Let us know please. We will try to entice them to Ireland." It is well known now that more than 1,000 jobs have been brought to Ireland so far by that means. I think there are huge connections. That is one of the spin-offs of it. The GAA abroad is different now. The old fashioned GAA was London, Birmingham, New York, Boston, and maybe Chicago. Now it is spread all over America. The interesting thing is that people abroad want to be part of it.

A total of 300 hurlers play in Milwaukee and they are organised by a Dane called Dave Olson. They are Americans, not Irish, but they have just taken to our sport. Hurling and camogie clubs have started up in Denver and Indianapolis.

It is a surprise to us that people would take to hurling and camogie as adults but they want to conquer what they see as a warrior sport and a sport that is carefully ruled and has definite safety regulations but also gives a chance for physical activity and skill. It is eye-opening to see their attitude to it. At a previous Oireachtas committee meeting when we were discussing the Sky component of the media rights deal, I related how in games I attended in Bahrain, the ladies football team from Abu Dhabi was all teachers while the team from Riyadh was all nurses. People from Australia who saw what they were doing and saw the community spirit in the games liked them and wanted to be part of them. I spoke to three Australian nurses in Bahrain who said that their time in Riyadh was made bearable by the fact that they not only found a wonderful sport but a wonderful community as well. The community aspect of our games gets to people. On the importance of broadcasting the games abroad, I quoted a nurse from Galway who said, "Seeing the games in Riyadh would be like a Band-Aid on a homesick heart". That was a wonderful means of expressing what it meant to her.

We started in 1999 in Europe with five teams. Mr. Joe McDonagh went across to form a county board. I was involved in Leinster coaching at the time. We were twinned with Europe and we saw this as something that might expand. As Mr. Duffy said, it has grown to more than 70 clubs. Brittany is the only place in the world where Gaelic games are on the formal school curriculum because of a partnership between a second level school and the Leinster Council. They have formalised it. They see Gaelic games as providing the key component for their second level schools. We have not even managed to do that here but, hopefully, we will. I am delighted that the Croatian ambassador is present. Nobody would ever have envisaged that there would be an interest in Gaelic games in Croatia, so much so that the country would like to see the All Stars play at some stage. That is an example of the impact the Irish are making abroad. People see that our games are competitive and friendly and there is a community spirit about them. It is also interesting that we have eight or nine clubs in Galicia, Spain and, by the end of this year, we will have 14. They are starting up of their own volition because they see Gaelic games as a means to express their Celtic origins. No one would ever have envisaged that.

We will be charged with finding a mechanism to guide the development of Gaelic games abroad. We have traditional strongholds in New York, which is big, and we support Gaelic Park as well. Then there is Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. I visited San Francisco recently and was followed out there a week later by the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Deenihan. We were looking at a ground which we could lease from the city and a complex to share with other sports. However, a new stadium is being built there and the stadium group would like to incorporate a Gaelic games field and other sports fields in the new complex. People are beginning to realise that the GAA has something to offer.

When the first group left Ireland and arrived in Sydney, they expected us to have a GAA field ready for them. It took a while and we have one now but people expect that sort of response from us. The Irish abroad want their children to play Gaelic games and that is why we have development officers. That initiative is working well for us. Access to the games on TV or the Internet is a vital component for us in spreading the games. We find people want to join the games in their hundreds.

However, the adult players who travel to populate the adults teams in the north American competitions might squeeze out the young people coming through if we do not find a balance. We are trying to work with New York and the north American board to find that balance and to give the children of Irish emigrants and their friends and neighbours a career path from childhood to adulthood. We get to visit the Irish centres when we are abroad but everything changes. The centres were fantastic when the emigrants arrived. They are old buildings, although a great deal of work has been done by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to renovate them and to make them more relevant but the difficulty is the younger transient population cannot give a commitment to these centres and to a certain extent, the GAA clubs are bolstering them at this stage. That is part of life; things change. The games and clubs are smaller than here but there will be more of them in the future. However, there is no doubt that if one wants to reach the Irish abroad, the GAA club is the place to go first. It is also important when people want to connect with home. People know the GAA abroad will help out.

The president gives presidential awards to people who give great service not just in the context of the games but in community activity. Approximately 20 months ago a young man from County Down, Kevin Bell, lost his life in New York. Some fundraising was done and the residual funds became the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust through which the bodies of people who die abroad are brought home. This fund was started by a GAA person and, staggeringly, it has repatriated 60 bodies of young Irish people. Mr. Duffy and I could not possibly claim credit for that. That is not down to the GAA but it is about members of the GAA doing what they would do at home and helping out. The advantage the GAA has is people bring their experience of home with them and they want to replicate it while building communities abroad in the same way we, as an organisation, have helped to build communities here. In Ireland if we strengthen our communities we will strengthen our GAA clubs. If we invest abroad, activity will expand to fit the space we provide for them. That is why it is important to provide facilities. It is important for us to put down roots and remain relevant for Irish communities.