Senator Gerard P. Craughwell - speech from 10 Dec 2019

Go rao maanigat, cae heir loch. Leader, I want to first congratulate Finland on the appointment of Sanna Marin, the youngest Prime Minister in Europe. Interestingly enough, the Finnish Government, now their coalition, has five women leaders, all under the age of 40. It will be interesting to see how that Parliament progresses in the coming months. I also want to mark the passing of Paul Anthony McDermott, a wonderful barrister, great author, and he'll be sadly missed for his interviews on RTE, where he made very complex things, very simple for people. Leader, there's been a lot of talk about the FAI in recent days and in recent months, and I received a communication last night which I find deeply disturbing. Because it would appear that it's not all out in the open. There are a number of questions regarding the FAI still remain unanswered. Questions such as, how much has the Association received in grant support for such things as Senior League, Licence Compliance, Underage Development, Disabled Persons Football, Football for the Deaf, Women's Football and numerous other programmes? Were these monies used for the purpose they were intended, or were they used to pay wages and service debt? The maths do not stack up. For example, Northern Ireland received its annual Licence Compliance Grant and distributed to clubs to assist them. In the case of the FAI, I understand that board members were never told how much the FAI received or where the money went. I understand that regional development officers, who were part paid by local authorities, these development officers were employed to promote the game and assist clubs. Again, I understand that this was never done. The development officers were forced to sell summer camps and training camps and other activities that would enhance the FAI's revenue streams. Development programmes within the FAI fell to clubs, parents and sponsors, which is an absolute disgrace. I'm informed that everything within the FAI over the last 10 years was about revenue generating to service debt that was unsustainable. Now football at all levels is on its knees and will take a long time to recover. There's now a major concern that regional development officers will be laid off as local authorities will no longer fund these programmes. We need an assurance from this. I'm informed that the FAI had a rule that all potential sponsors for clubs must in the first instance be passed by FAI headquarters. Once the FAI headquarters became aware of a potential sponsor for a club, the headquarters people, and I'm not sure who they were, would approach this sponsor and seek to do a deal with corporate seats or whatever it took to get the money directly into the FAI and away from the club that it was intended for. What's been happening over the last 10 years in the FAI, sorry, is the FAI used every club, player, coach, parent, and everybody else as a revenue source while putting nothing back into the game. At one stage, the financial director, I understand, tried to resign but was told he would have to stay on to present the financial report at the AGM. While everybody was away in Armenia, he resigned. Rumour at the top table was that he assured the FAI had met its target in selling corporate seats in Aviva so they could draw down monies from the banks. This target had never been met. He felt his integrity was compromised and he was not willing to stand over a set of accounts he didn't believe in. Leader, what went on in the FAI has destroyed people's faith in the sporting world in Ireland and in particular to see how some senior people have walked away with greatly enhanced monies in their pockets while clubs are starving. This person goes on and talks about the League of Ireland clubs where clubs had to put in between 15 and 25 grand a year on legal fees, referees fees, fines, licensing fees, etc. And a number of sponsors put in over 50,000. How can the League say that... Just on others that are mentioning this issue about the FAI, this is about the sub-U, this is going to be all sorts of investigations into understanding, so be very couramous that we don't drag ourselves into the foreclose. Thank you, Cahir, look, I will indeed. I'd ask people to be very circumspect in their comments and also be careful because we don't have a free-for-all in here, we're not entitled to. Absolutely, no, I do not. All-amintry privilege is what it is but it doesn't give us a licence to. I'm not directing him specifically at you, I'm just... What I would like to see, though, is I would like to see the Minister come to the House and, I mean, anything else that I'm concerned about, and I understand your position, Cahir, look, anything else I'm concerned about, I will be referring to the Gardaí. I would not use the privilege of the House to undermine what's taking place in the public domain right now. But I do think the Minister needs to come to the House and explain where we, as in the government, is with respect to the FAI today. There is a danger of contagion running across other sporting organisations, most of whom perform at the upper end of probity and decency. So, from that point of view, I think it's something that we need to look at here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.