GAA take issue with ESRI report

THE GAA are to raise the subject of this week's Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) report, which claims Gaelic games have stagnated as participation sports, with both the institute itself and the Irish Sports Council, which co-operated closely with the study.

According to spokesperson Danny Lynch the GAA take issue both with the report and the manner of its release, saying that even by yesterday evening Croke Park had yet to be sent a copy of the document, Sporting Lives: An analysis of a lifetime of Irish sport.

"We hadn't seen the report," he said yesterday, "and yet it was decided both to release it and issue a press release on selected conclusions without informing us. This will be taken up with the Irish Sports Council and the ESRI."

The essence of the finding is that Gaelic games have suffered a relative decline in participation compared to other sports in the past five to six decades.

According to Lynch the report is at odds with an earlier report by the ESRI, which remarked on how the GAA's "wide range of social and cultural objectives" had become focused on "civic nationalism" and "community ethos" and found that it had the highest rates of volunteerism of any sport.

"It appears to contradict what was said three years ago in a previous report in 2005," he said, "which emphasised the outstanding contribution made by the GAA and its volunteers.

"I can't see the object of the exercise unless there's an attempt being made to justify reducing funding to the association. If the GAA pulled out of even 10 per cent of its activities the state wouldn't be able to pick up the slack.

"We would regard this as a rather peculiar exercise. Comparing the present with a time when the GAA was providing the only national sporting infrastructure, there was bound to be a proportionate levelling off in participation rates given the increase in public funding for sports across the board.

"It also compares an Ireland with few facilities like swimming pools and gymnasiums and reads an awful lot into the development of such facilities in modern times."

He added that the GAA's own membership figures and registration of teams and players were at historically high levels.

"Even in anecdotal terms it's hard to square the thrust of this report with developments in areas like south Dublin, which has seen an explosion in the presence of Gaelic games in the past two decades. Pat Daly (GAA head of games) has outlined how on a national level, there are currently record numbers playing both football and hurling."

Daly told this newspaper yesterday: "There is certainly no concern from a GAA perspective. We're at a loss as to where they are coming from with this. Right across the board our figures don't reflect a decline, be it relative or otherwise."