It’s up to Clare County Board to explain grant decision – Cooney

GAA president Christy Cooney has placed the responsibility for explaining how the 10 Croke Park grants were distributed in Clare, firmly in the hands of the Clare County Board.
The Strategic Infrastructure Funding Programme grants, worth €25,000 each, were allocated at a Clare County Board meeting on April 13.
The GAA distributed €250,000 to each county resulting from the financial dividend of opening Croke Park to soccer and rugby in 2007, while Lansdowne Road was under development.
The clubs were chosen by Croke Park stadium manager, Peter McKenna and Derry County Board chairman, Seamus McCloy, after the three-man committee of Johnny Hill, Ger Hickey and PJ Kelly stood down having been unable to reach a decision on which of the 24 clubs should receive a grant.
Clubs had to spend in excess of €100,000 to qualify for the grant with the work completed by December 31, 2010.
In last week’s Clare Champion, Kilmaley GAA club, who have spent €600,000 on development work but did not receive a grant, demanded a full explanation from Clare County Board as to how the decision was made to allocate the money to the successful clubs. They also revealed that they were writing to Mr Cooney for an explanation.
However, speaking on Tuesday at the launch of the All-Ireland Football Championship in Kerry, the GAA president said that it is up to the Clare County Board to explain themselves.
“The main response to explain what was going on is a matter for the Clare County Board. They made the decision. We were asked to make a judgement and we made that judgement. If we didn’t make the judgement, we’d be back to square one. We are where we are,” the GAA president stated.
However Clare County Board chairman Michael O’Neill told The Clare Champion on Wednesday that he had to talk to the county board executive before making a comment on Mr Cooney’s suggestion that it was up to the county board to reveal how the grants decision was made.
“I won’t say anything about that until we’ve discussed it at executive level. It wouldn’t be fair of me to just make an off the cuff remark on it because we haven’t discussed it at executive level,” he said.
In detailing the Croke Park role in helping to select the 10 successful clubs, Christy Cooney admitted that Peter McKenna or Seamus McCloy did not visit all of the applicant clubs and said that they were influenced by the seemingly disbanded Clare sub-committee.
“Clare set up a sub committee to look at this. They decided that there were 25 worthwhile projects and they couldn’t make a decision on the 10 best so we were asked at national level to review the projects.
“Seamus McCloy and Peter McKenna, from our national infrastructure committee, reviewed the projects and spoke to people who were members of the sub-committee in Clare. They didn’t get an opportunity to visit them (clubs) all because that wouldn’t have been possible. They then made a decision on the information in the applications they had before them and on the information they had received from Clare as to who would fit the bill.
“The recommendation was sent back to Clare County Board and it was sanctioned by them. That’s where it is,” Mr Cooney said.
Stating that he had received a letter from Kilmaley GAA Club, the GAA president said he would be in touch with them.
“I’ll be corresponding. The background to this situation is that they have written to me and I haven’t replied to them yet. Clare asked us to help them out and we did that. Our two people did what they thought was right. The projects they put forward were deserving of the €25,000. Any more than that, we can’t do,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, Michael O’Neill says that the county board will work with all Clare clubs in helping to secure various grant aid for development work.
“We would like to work with clubs going forward. Obviously what’s gone past is finished with but I think we should be looking as to how we can facilitate clubs, which we have done in the past. Clubs have got grants from Munster Council and Croke Park and will continue to do so. But we, as a county board, have to work with the clubs going forward and see where we can come up with ways of easing their financial difficulty,” he said.