Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Horan and his wife and family. I acknowledge the presence of the chairman of the Limerick County Board, former Deputy John Cregan, and Mattie Ryan, a former colleague of mine on the Mid-West Regional Authority.

Many institutions in the State, including the church, have fallen. The GAA is now effectively taking up that leadership role for young people across the country.

Up and down the country, the GAA is very much taking that leadership role for young people, which includes a significant amount of responsibility. How does Mr. Horan expect that to evolve?

One of the GAA's features is that it has the greatest network of volunteers in the country. It is in every branch, town, village and city and it must consider its strengths. Mr. Horan probably will be aware that many of the grants to sports and community areas are given to community facilities where sports and community combine. Any facility that the GAA considers building should have a large community aspect because the GAA is already there and has the use of the grounds, and because it has the infrastructure to ensure the facility is sustainable and will be maintained. Over the years, I have seen too many cases where projects are built, people do not have the structure to sustain them and they become white elephants. When GAA clubs up and down the country are submitting grant applications, I encourage them to consider the community aspect of the local community centre.

I acknowledge that the president visited Limerick, as he has done a number of times. He attended our celebrations for Limerick winning the Liam McCarthy Cup and said he hoped to return to present it again to us next year, which we will hold him to. I met him at one of our local clubs, Ahane GAA, once the home of Mick Mackey and now of the Morrissey brothers. My club, Monaleen, is a city club, and its hurling teams features Andrew La Touche Cosgrave and Lorcan Lyons.

The GAA has an enormous contribution to make but with that comes a great deal of responsibility, which is not limited to the specific area of sport.