Mr. Tom Ryan:

In the case of the GAA, it is worth bearing in mind that the sequence in which we returned to the field of play was that we started playing club games and juvenile games before we play the big intercounty matches. Given the restrictions that applied to attendances and the profile of those games, we were always only talking about a small number of spectators anyway. In the case of my club, where we had 200 people permitted at a game, when one takes into account the fact that this number covers the players, officials, team management and so on, essentially only 30 to 50 spectators could be catered for. The GAA did not encounter many instances of inappropriate behaviour or congregation, either before or after those games, which is probably not surprising given the number of people we are talking about. We would be of a mind that if there are measures we can take and there is the prospect of slightly greater numbers attending, we will do that. This would involve, for example, stewards on the sideline asking people to keep an appropriate distance and we can regulate carparks and ask people to leave the ground as soon as the game is over. We did not use dressing rooms, for example.

We adopted the mantra of turn up, play the game and go home. We communicated that message to people very publicly and we will double down on our efforts. However, I think the reservations and restrictions regarding numbers were born out of a fear of what might arise, rather than reported cases. We did not come across many such instances.