GAELIC GAMES:The prospect of intercounty players receiving the proposed Government welfare grants appears as distant as ever following last night's meeting between the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Minister for Sport Séamus Brennan, Ian O'RiordanReports
GPA chief executive Dessie Farrell admitted after the meeting that no progress had been made on agreeing the channels of distribution for the Government's €5 million player welfare grant.
The impasse, which has led to talk of a players' strike from the GPA, is centred around the idea of the money being made available to the GAA in infrastructure grants on the basis that the association could then write the cheque for the players itself.
"No, I would have to say that there was no progress made tonight," said Farrell. "That's not to say that there wouldn't be progress made in the future, and there was an important component of the discussion party missing tonight, and that was the GAA.
"I understand the Minister is due to meet with the GAA next week, and we're hoping that can be a joint meeting. But I think there was some confusion about this meeting, which we originally thought was supposed to be a joint meeting. So that has to be done next week."
It was the first formal talks for the GPA with Brennan since he took over the portfolio from John O'Donoghue. The Taoiseach attended the early part of the meeting, before leaving Farrell and Minister Brennan to discuss the issue in more detail.
Despite some reports to the contrary, the offer of the Government money remains firmly in place, and instead the impasse is still based solely on how to distribute the money to the satisfaction of all relevant parties.
"The offer is still on the table, absolutely," added Farrell. "The funding is not an issue, only the mechanism. But we never expected there to be any change in that offer. It's just the same old problem that still exists, unfortunately. We all need to sit down around the same table now and try to come up with something on this. But as of now, we'll be proceeding with our plan to ballot (for strike action)."
Farrell, in other words, remains adamant that the threat of a players' strike remains a live issue. However, it's now clear the GPA and GAA will have to come up with another way of distributing the grants, outside of the current proposal.
The option of the money being distributed through the Irish Sports Council is the most obvious alternative, although this opens up the idea to further implications, namely similar requests from other amateur sporting bodies.
Speaking earlier this week, GAA president Nickey Brennan was adamant the GPA would have to come up with an alternative way of distributing any potential grant money: "We have no problem with the grant," he said. "If the Government wants to pay it out through the Irish Sports Council, that's fine . . . We'll facilitate the payment in any way we can, but our infrastructure grants have to be kept out of it.
"We go to the Government for infrastructure grants on their own merits and on a project-by-project basis. We even help the Government prioritise those projects through our National Infrastructure Committee and with the input of provincial councils.
"They (GPA) have clearly been working with the Government on this over a long time, but the Government made the offer and it's up to them to sort out the best means of disbursement."
