Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. I will start with the FAI and then I will move to the other organisations. This morning my local paper, the Meath Chronicle, carried an opinion piece on this subject and the headline in Jimmy Geoghegan’s piece was "Time to give all bully boys the red card". I will jump to his summation where he talks about how the Meath Chroniclecarried a story in early October on how the Louth branch of the Irish Soccer Referees’ Society, ISRS, had issued a statement referring to the difficulties encountered by its members, officially in games in the north-eastern football league. It adopted a zero tolerance stance whereby if they had abuse directed towards them they would simply pick up the ball and walk off the field. They said that on certain days they knew there would be serial offenders playing. The officials also clearly felt that not enough was being done by those who govern the game to stamp out the abuse. A spokesperson for the Louth branch said, "The lack of appropriate sanctions is allowing such serial offenders to continue to attend and operate in an official capacity." One of the things they asked for was clearly marked areas for coaches and officials and that supporters would be at least 2 m back from the pitch behind a rope, fence or marked line of a different colour. Is that being taken on board by the FAI to protect its officials? Will those clear lines of demarcation be brought in? I remember some years back from my time as a sports reporter being at a derby game in the Meath and district league round and a supporter beside me headbutted one of the players over an incident. That happened because there were no demarcation lines. Will what the Louth branch are calling for be taken on board?