Draft E-mail regarding the money thing.
"A Chara,
You may be aware of a newpaper article which has appeared in The Times Ireland Edition which has made an argument that the GAA at central level, has applied funds to the Dublin GAA communty (beit through the Clubs or the County Board or through the Leinster Council) in a manner which has resulted in the recent successes of the Dublin Senior Intercounty Football team.
You may not be aware of an interance made by a Statistitian on Twitter inferring that these payments are totally disproportionate when measured against any other county. This is now about to become a major issue on GAA media and would, if not countered by the County Board, cast a shadow over the wonderful achievements of our Football team last Saturday.
Even as dedicated and long standing fans, we find terms like "development grants" and "development officers" to be vague terms.
We dont doubt the amounts of money which are alleged to have been spent (its all there in the GAA annual report) but we would hope that the County Board would issue a statement showing why this money is needed, how it is spent, where it is spent and how it relates to the concept of "registered players" - does this term include all underage players, does it include all school teams?
We would also welcome a robust rebuttal of the inferance that these grants and payments are awarded to the County Board or the Clubs on a different set of criteria to those outside of Dublin, and a clarification of what the criateria actual is, and how these funds are applied for in the first place.
We would also welcome clarification on the issue of the "Sports Council Grant" which is alledged is awarded by the Irish Sports Council to the GAA at national level and which is then passed in its entirity to the Dublin GAA community. Is this the case, and is it possible to, again, show how and why this is the case and how and why it is being applied.
There are other matters which we know the County Board would wish to address and deal with at this happy time for all of us Gaels in Dublin, and it is saddening that we feel motivated in raising these issues. However, we are fans and we are emotional and sensitive to this sort of thing. We get hit with these sort of arguments all of the time (espicially those of us who live outside of Dublin) and after four years of it, we would like to be able to point to some statement or to some document which rebuts this issue once and for all.
Is mise le meas"