Mr. Liam O'Neill:

The Deputy has asked a myriad of questions. We are trying to deal with this as best we can. I am not used to this form of questioning but I will do my best to answer the Deputy. This is a package. We had that person in Australia in mind.

The central council delegate for Britain is Paul Foley. I visited him in Cardiff last Saturday week and he told me that for years they were neglected, the broadcasters here did not make an effort to provide the games in Britain. There is a huge Irish population in Britain. I was with St. Colmcille's club in Cardiff whose members said they were delighted that for the first time, the ladies particularly, will be able to tell their work colleagues this is their sport, and invite them to see it. Millions of people will see it. It will bring about a huge awareness of the value of Gaelic games on the island of Britain.

Had we not thought of the emigrants we might not have considered the Sky package. The Deputy needs to see this as a process. It would be more fair to view it as a package rather than isolate one tiny point. This was our aim at the start. I have reached out and spent a good deal of time on the island of Britain, which the GAA in Britain acknowledges. London is our biggest flagship abroad, along with New York. They are our two biggest county boards abroad. They were looking for help. They wanted to be acknowledged and for us to show them that they are important to us. While the other deal could have been done in Australia the fact that we placed the Irish abroad at the top of our agenda meant that we focused on the package that has now evolved. One cannot isolate one incident. We did not go to Sky. Sky tendered and we responded.