Mr. Connie O'Driscoll:

I wish to respond to Senator Wilson. I will leave the question on the GAA congress to my colleague, Mr. Tim Sheehan.

I mentioned where the idea came from earlier. We need all our players. We have a saying that might sound crude to some. We always say that jerseys should be on young players' backs on the field and definitely not on coffins. I know that is crude and hurtful to people who have suffered but it is a reality. Much of the time, jerseys are where they should not be because of road accidents. That brought it home to us. Two lads from our club were lucky to escape a pretty serious road accident. It came home to us that there were other factors to be considered. We certainly need the youth to play games but we should have an input into other areas of their lives. Often, young players would start training with us in February and March and play games throughout the summer, shedding blood, sweat and tears. They would disappear in September and would not be seen again until March. We believed we needed to have more input into their lives. We believed the GAA club was the ideal organisation through which to deal with some of the problems they experience. That is where the idea came from. We broadened the initiative from one focusing on road safety to one including health and well-being, in addition to the jobs and enterprise element, which was a really serious issue in 2010 and still is. If the parents are not working in an area, there will not be kids to play the games.

I will leave the question on congress to Mr. Sheehan.