Professor Mary McAleese:

I want to add something that runs in parallel with the issue the Deputy raised. It is entirely admirable that people who would play one day and train four days a week would then be involved in fundraising. I take his point that they should be absolved from that burden. However, all over the country, people are being, as far as possible, absolved from that burden. Behind players, coaches, referees, managers and all the structure based around playing, there is another body of people who are exactly that, the fundraisers. These are the people who run the committees and organise events such as the 5 km race or the night at the greyhound racing. There is literally an army of people there doing exactly that. This feeds into the question of how the Government and local authorities can help us. The GAA is not asking Government to fund everything on its own. The GAA has a very long history of providing its own funding because it did not have the resources from elsewhere. It gets sponsorship in but it also leverages a lot of local money. This is one of its great strengths and worth emphasising here today.