Mayo GAA debates need more rigour and less abuse

Anthony Hennigan’s analysis of plans for a Mayo GAA Centre of Excellence in Bohola in this paper last week was simply superb.

Appearing in the paper the morning after an extraordinary meeting of Mayo GAA in Westport, it was a timely reminder of the correct way to apply rigour and scrutiny to a Mayo GAA matter.

That special delegates meeting had two apparent purposes. One was to provide clarity about the finances relating to a write-down on bank loans that Croke Park took over for Mayo GAA and the second was, to quote Mayo GAA chairperson Séamus Tuohy, to address a "concerted campaign of harassment directed at board officers".

The presence of GAA President Jarlath Burns, Ard Srúithoir Tom Ryan, Head of Finance at Croke Park Ger Mulryan, and the GAA’s Head of Audit and Risk, Michelle McAleer, at the meeting was extraordinary. That such a high-powered delegation came down was unheard of for a county board meeting and it was clear they were standing foursquare behind Mayo GAA on these matters.

And you can see why they would stand behind them when you saw some of the correspondence Mayo GAA have been receiving from individuals who were not named on the night.

Séamus Tuohy missed the May monthly meeting of the board on May 13 because he was in hospital. That night he received an email calling him a "lying coward" for not turning up.

A succession of emails were shown on a projector.

Mayo GAA treasurer Valerie Murphy was told in an email sent on May 16: "You are now our number one target. If we take you out, Mayo GAA will have a much brighter future." 

That same email also said the following: “In the next six months you will be publicly humiliated, probably lose your professional license as a chartered accountant but worst of all your friends and family will turn their backs on you.” 

Nobody, anywhere, can condone that kind of communication. The points made by Séamus Tuohy and Jarlath Burns were valid – who would want to get involved in the County Board with this going on? The correspondence has been going on for five years, according to the slides presented on the night, across the terms of at least two chairpersons, Séamus Tuohy and Liam Moffatt.

It was interesting to contrast what was directed at Valerie Murphy, for instance, with what Jarlath Burns had to say about the Charlestown clubwoman. He said Michelle McAleer had audited every county in terms of audit and risk, financial control and transparency and said Mayo ranked number one. He was effusive in his praise for Valerie Murphy, describing her as "forensic, totally competent and totally in charge of their brief" and said he had singled her out as his appointment as the finance volunteer on the Croke Park board.

Maybe it’s one big, giant cover-up or maybe Mayo GAA have a really good treasurer.

You can read elsewhere in these pages the breakdown of how Tom Ryan explained the financial situation around the Mayo GAA loans. I am conscious I am not a financial expert and looking at a balance sheet can bring me out in a rash but it seemed a very thorough explanation around what must be said were reasonable concerns. The write-down was not declared previously and there were some justifiable questions about the issues in recent weeks, as evidenced by Christy Loftus’s column in these pages.

Again, rigour and scrutiny, properly applied, is no bad thing. In fact, it should be welcomed.

It was interesting to note that Tom Ryan’s extensive presentation did not lead to a single question from the delegates about the financial arrangement. He was asked about more games being fixed for MacHale Park but that was it.

Now perhaps the delegates were as impressed as I was but I am sure that among them there were people with a better handle on such matters than I. Perhaps it may have been reasonable to ask that the write-down was initially speculated to be 50% and what he revealed on the night was 20%, so could he speak to that?

However, as anyone who has covered Mayo County Board meetings over the years can attest to, rigour and scrutiny are often absent.

On the face of it, there is a perfect level of accountability and democracy in the GAA. Club members can become officers. The club sends a delegate to the county board, the county board sends delegates to provincial and central councils and there is a clear, linear chain of command and accountability. But often, for many reasons, club delegates are slow to engage and hold the officers to account and apply a proper level of rigour and scrutiny. There is a disconnect there and then a sense grows in the Mayo GAA community at large that the county board is not properly representative of the clubs.

These disconnections are a problem and I am not sure if any county board in my time has attempted to adequately address this. It’s fair to conclude that many officers may be happy with this but the long-term health of Mayo GAA is not served by a lack of scrutiny and rigour.

I recall when Liam Moffatt and Séamus Tuohy were in the race for chairperson, Moffatt decided to visit every club and Tuohy followed his lead. Some clubs had not seen a county board officer call to them for decades. And we wonder why there is a disconnect?

Some clubs are afraid to speak out because there is a pernicious attitude in many Irish groups that ‘if you’re not with us, you’re against us’. Others are sometimes wary of saying something and having it reported by the media (media coverage of meetings is essential, I have to add, but this is a concern some people legitimately hold). John Holian, from Balla, said on Monday night some delegates have "felt intimidated or afraid to say anything, afraid to speak up at County Board meetings because they might be misquoted by some scoundrel that’s in at the meeting that decides he’s leaking to this particular individual", a reference to a sender of the emails.

There is a need for greater rigour and scrutiny but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.

I always think it is important that people ask themselves the fundamental question anyone invested in Mayo GAA should always ask of themselves – is what I am doing in the interests of the betterment of Mayo GAA? I’ve always had my doubts about that with different people over the years and I think it applies now to what we heard on Monday night too.

As for the Centre of Excellence? Well, I’ve run out of space so I’ll have to return to that in the coming weeks!