Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are very few things that get me riled up but one certainly is the notion that the GAA, as an entity, seems to think it owns the content that is produced by volunteers from the very start. The players are volunteers, the people training them are volunteers, the children who are supported by their families are volunteers, and they pay through the nose every step of the way. It is great and we have a wonderful organisation. However, there has been a commercialisation going on in Croke Park for some time now and it has reached a crescendo. It started with Sky. I sat on the committee when we were told that, somehow, this was going to increase the reach of the games and it would be to a wider world audience. Nothing could be further from the truth. It did not make sense and it did not continue, but it has led the way for this development of pay-per-view, owned and controlled by the executive in Croke Park. They are handsomely paid and they do a good job, but they are now at the edge of undermining what the GAA is all about.It is voluntary and is about volunteerism. As I have said, time out of number, clubs and people attached to the organisation do wonderful work. I am delighted the Tánaiste has rowed in. It might have happened just because there was a good game between Cork and Tipperary. I have been at this a long time, as have others. We should have a debate in this House about that in the first instance. There is a wider debate about public service broadcasting and how we pay for it. It is not paid for by the Government; it is paid through the licence fee. That is not enough to keep RTÉ and other public service operations in place. Let us not confuse the two. There need to be two debates. First, let us have a debate on what the GAA is about and what it stands for. It might choke the golden goose if this carry-on is allowed to continue.