Madam, - The vast majority of the media coverage of the Croke Park debate has been alarmingly slanted in favour of the "open it up" lobby.
As grassroots GAA members we feel it is disgraceful that our association has provided no information concerning the proposed rule change in the form of facts and figures.
One might have expected that the very least the GAA could have done at national level was to circulate a fact sheet outlining the pros and cons. Then informed decisions could be made. Genuine GAA members who have nothing but the good of the association at heart have been pilloried, insulted and branded as bigots and unpatriotic traitors.
We believe that if Croke Park is "opened up" to soccer and rugby the GAA, as an indigenous amateur association, will lose its greatest promotional tool to its competitors - both of which are professional international sports with unlimited markets and access to huge financial backing. This is the thin end of the wedge: once a precedent is set it is only a matter of time before pressure will mount for club or county grounds to be used similarly to make up for the shortage of facilities for rival sports throughout the country. If the GAA has one rule covering Croke Park and a different one covering all other grounds we will quickly be accused of being hypocritical. (And could the GAA be left open to a possible legal challenge?)
Opening up Croke Park would eliminate the need for soccer and rugby associations to provide meaningful capital investment of their own. This would allow them spend their resources on games promotion and games development at schools and under-age level, giving them a huge competitive edge.
We in the GAA are proud of our open-plan, free movement stadium. To comply with FIFA regulations, secure crowd segregation measures would have to be installed, including separate exiting to avoid a potential Heysel or Hillsborough disaster or a Landsdowne Road riot situation.
Surely the main aim of the GAA should be to promote Gaelic games by playing more hurling, football and camogie games in Croke Park, rather than allowing competing professional sports. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN ARNOLD, Fermoy, Co Cork; MATHUIN MAC FHEORAIS, Dundrum, Dublin; MAIRTÍN Ó COIGHLIGH, Newry, Co Down; EAMONN KELLY, Oranmore Road, Galway.
Madam, - On the eve of the GAA congress which will discuss, among other things, opening Croke Park to other sports, the last thing that was needed was a comment from the Taoiseach supporting such a measure.
It was his hamfisted intervention on the last occasion there was a chance that this motion might pass that led to its defeat. He would be better advised to keep his own counsel. - Yours, etc.,
BRENDAN McMAHON, Elmwood, Naas, Co Kildare.
Madam, - It now appears that the GAA may well relax its attitude towards allowing other games to be played in Croke Park, so perhaps it is time to look dispassionately at the plan to rebuild the stadium at Lansdowne Road.
The main problem with the current stadium has always been that it is badly situated within the site, squeezed into a corner bordered by Lansdowne Road, Havelock Square and the railway line.
Incredibly, the current proposal for a new stadium seeks to make the same mistake again by keeping the playing pitch in the same position when all logic would dictate that the best result would be achieved by turning it 180 degrees and building the stadium lengthwise on the site. In this way the new stadium could be an oval and the overall height could be reduced as it is currently envisaged that the sides will have to be much higher than the ends in order to achieve the required capacity.
I am well aware of the argument that the back pitch on the site must be retained for lesser matches but I think we all suspect that once the stadium is up and running, the rest of the site, which I presume will still belong to the IRFU, will be used for a hotel, offices and apartments.
Most of the cost of the stadium will be borne by the taxpayer so it should not be for the exclusive use of the FAI and the IRFU. We should be thinking of a national stadium capable of hosting any event, including world and European athletics championships, so a running track should be incorporated as well as a retractable roof to combat the worst excesses of the Irish climate.
The opportunity to build a decent multi-purpose stadium is unlikely to occur again for a very long time so every effort should be made to avoid the current half-baked plans being put forward by the promoters of the scheme. - Yours, etc.,
ROBERT McKEOWN, Sandymount, Dublin 4.