Mr. Larry McCarthy:

Casement Park is rolling along. Hopefully, we are getting places. A decision will be made in Europe in October that will impact this and hopefully it will be the right decision and we will then have that urban facility on a wonderful site in the middle of Belfast. The Ulster Council needs it and the GAA needs it, so hopefully this will happen.

The abuse of the Leitrim players referred to by Senator Cassells was horrendous. The Leitrim team lost, as Members will know. This abuse should not happen. That is why I am asking the House to consider a protection of amateur sportspeople Bill, so we can get after these people and prevent this from happening. As an association, we, with the help of our players association, are helping players to try to put a bubble over themselves to a certain extent, in a technological sense. This does not, though, prevent the abuse coming. As I understand it, to a certain extent it is possible to prevent the abuse getting to you, but we really need to protect our amateur athletes, our volunteers and our referees. I say this because the whole ethos of amateur sport is being attacked. I ask the Senators to think about this aspect. If people know they are going to go out and play in a championship match next Sunday and are possibly going to be beaten, why would they go out and suffer the abuse? I ask this especially if they are playing on a lower-tier team. They could give this up and go off and play golf or something like that. We have to step back and ask ourselves the following question: while a particular team is getting this abuse now, what about the whole ethos of this? Does this mean we are going to discourage our young men and women from playing sport and amateur sport? This is a bigger context than any particular team, I suggest.

We have a wonderful partnership with RTÉ in GAAGo. We have created this entity and we did it initially for the diaspora. Covid-19 showed us how we can do this at home, essentially. What we have done now is to create a wonderful streaming service with GAAGo so that anybody anywhere in the world can get it. I think 38 games are available on the island of Ireland for €79. If people are members of a GAA club, they get a 10% reduction. This is not going to solve geoblocking, but it is a way to make the games accessible. I also understand that we are now also going to be on the BBC networks. Our semi-finals and finals are going to be on the BBC network globally, which is a massive step forward in respect of our sport. As I said, this development does not fix geoblocking but at least it is a step in the right direction.

Every one of the speakers is correct in saying that the GAA as an institution reflects Irish society. We will continue to do so.We need the support of the Oireachtas, which we are being given. In particular, as we move towards integration, we are going to need help to provide facilities. There is a shortage of pitches as it is and when we integrate there is going to be an even greater shortage of them. So we need the public's support and public funding across the country. We are there, we are not going anywhere and we will continue to be what we are in every community and parish not only on the island of Ireland but in a whole host of other places across the world.

I shall conclude by saying that I was at the Global Irish Civic Forum that took place in Dublin Castle last week and met a man who has just been involved in creating a club in Mexico City.