SOME OF the sharpest exchanges seen in the House were prompted by the remarks of Mark Daly (FF) that it had been disappointing to read in the newspapers that for the first time the All-Ireland hurling and football finals would be played on British soil.
Jerry Buttimer (FG) said: “That is typical of a small, bigoted mind.” Mr Daly said he had been in contact with a number of contractors around the country who constructed GAA pitches and he had been working with the Fine Gael TD who trained the Mayo football team . “The consultants in the GAA appear to have a bias towards a particular contractor. This is all the more disturbing because the taxpayer has provided millions of euro for Croke Park.”
It did not appear that there had been any tendering process for the €1.2 million contract.
Cathaoirleach Pat Moylan said the House had no responsibility for the GAA. Mr Daly asked that the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism to examine the issue, “because all contracts with sporting organisations should be seen to be transparent”.
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There would be a terrible day of reckoning if TDs and Senators did not see the need to make real sacrifices in terms of their pay and conditions, Eoghan Harris (Ind) warned. As a one-term Senator this did not concern him too much, but other members of the House should take on board what he was saying.
Mr Harris said that An Bord Snip Nua had been precluded from considering the most important problem facing our economy – the question of public sector pay. As a former trade unionist, he did not understand how the trade union movement and the political class could contemplate the axing of 20,000 jobs rather than cutting public service pay and saving them.