Mr. Liam O'Neill:

He was "Emperor of the Irish". He did not say he was emperor of the island or of Ireland but of the Irish. We have to consider the Irish at home and abroad.

I am a primary school teacher and I will return to that work. I live in a small community. I know old and young people. I will meet GAA people every day of my three years in office. One month has already gone. It is a fortnight today since the deal was announced. I can look the Deputy in the eye and honestly say nobody has said a negative thing directly to me about it. That is significant because of the number of people I meet.

Apart from going to functions and meeting people in the normal course of events, I attended games in Thurles the week before last and the games in Croke Park on Sunday, where there was a wide representation of GAA people. I spent yesterday playing with young children on the surface of Croke Park; 1,200 children played there yesterday. Over the course of the year 12,000 children will play on the surface of Croke Park. We are delighted to do that. That is part of our reaching out to communities.

We in the GAA have recognised for some time that we take our strength from communities. From day one I pointed out to communities where clubs had been formed over 125 years ago - which are having big celebrations - that great communities were the first to form GAA clubs because they recognised something of value in the fledgling organisation and jumped in saying they wanted to be part of it. The growth since then has been phenomenal.

As Mr Duffy pointed out, it is a global organisation with a global responsibility. When I meet young people, whether at home or abroad, they want to play and need to see our games. That is why we want them at our games and why we offer such fantastic value to children, who come free to most games. There is a minor charge because a ticket must be produced for some games. Apart from that children are, and always will be, our focus. The only reaction I got yesterday to the Sky deal was a thumbs-up from a family and the young people said "Well done Sky". Children are looking forward to it because they know it will be good. They know Sky is a byword for excellent production, coverage and hype of games and they look forward to it.

Last October, I visited Australia for the Australasian games, which cover New Zealand and the surrounding areas as well as Australia. The message I heard there, as I have heard on every other visit was "Please see to it that we get our games". Not only will the Irish in Australia be able to view the games but the millions of people who know of the association between the Australian Football League, AFL, and Gaelic games are interested in our Gaelic football and want to see it and enjoy it. They now have a chance to do that.

I spoke to a young man in Australia who told me two years ago he had to go to a pub to watch an all-Ireland final. It was the early hours of the morning and the pub closed at three o'clock and he begged the barman to let him stay. The barman said it was against the rules and he could not do it but he told him he could turn the television towards the window and the man could stand outside to watch it. Can the committee picture our emigrants, our brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews or grandchildren, standing outside the window of a pub in Australia seeking to watch our games? How glad will those people be and how glad are they now that they will have access to it? How glad are they that not only did we go to the bother of providing the games on free-to-air, but we also have a partner there who will do that for us? That is a huge success.