Sir, - Regarding the £20 million (over three years) committed in the Budget to the GAA, it occurs to me that advantage should be taken of this to pursue a course of action which would result in a considerable saving of totally unnecessary work which arises in the Land Commission Division of the Department of Agriculture and Food.The vast majority of the GAA sports fields in the State are held by trustees under allotments made by the Land Commission. Over the years 1937 to 1978 a total of 308 such allotments were made; the total number of sports fields could well be of the order of 500. In each of these cases there are three trustees who were nominated by the relevant county boards of the GAA and then appointed as trustees by the Minister for Lands.Work arises in these trusts whenever a trustee retires or dies. Replacement trustees, nominated by the county boards, have then to be appointed by the Minister. The work involved in these operations is quite considerable as the relevant file has to be procured. These files are all located in the records branch of the Land Commission now housed in Bishop Street, Dublin, while the Land Commission staff dealing with these cases are located in Farnham Street, Cavan.In the course of my span in the Land Commission, I was ever on the look-out to obviate unnecessary work. In 1993 the Land Commission proposed to the GAA that a mass transfer of ownership of all GAA trusts could be made to trustees nominated by the Central Council of the GAA. This called for the co-operation of the GAA but no response was made to this approach and it was concluded that the GAA had no interest in proceeding along the lines indicated. It should be stated that all these trusts bear the stamp of perpetuity so all this is a matter of considerable importance.My suggestion is that a little arm-twisting of the GAA authorities would not be misplaced at this juncture. What about a Government-approved follow-up to the committal of the £20 million, advising the GAA that this extremely generous grant is subject to the satisfactory completion by the GAA of the transfer of ownership of all GAA trusts as suggested in 1993.This projected reduction in the work of the Department of Agriculture (Land Commission) would be seen as some tangible return to the State from the munificent gift earmarked for the GAA.Readers who are interested in all this will find further details of these LC trusts in my book In the Land Commission (A memoir 1933-1978) recently published by Ashfield Press. While it is not a history of the Land Commission, it covers all the major events and happenings there over that period. - Yours, etc.,Patrick J.
Sammon,Sandymount,Dublin 4.