Sean Dunnion
THE chair of the Donegal County Board has hit out at the allocation of funds from the GAA – saying Ulster counties in the Republic are getting a raw deal in funding.
Sean Dunnion revealed that of a huge €1.28M given to Ulster counties last year, Donegal got just €40,200. Dublin got even more than that – just to one county.
The revelations come at a time when the Centre of Excellence is in dire need of extra funding to bring it up to any sort of standard, players being forced to use run-down portacabins to change.
Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, are all being under-funded by the GAA, said Dunnion.
The financial report revealed that Dublin received over €1.46m for games development last year while Ulster received a collective figure which fell just shy of €1.28m.
Sean Dunnion said Donegal is particularly disadvantaged by the fact that they are located outside the border of the six Ulster counties.
“We’re particularly disadvantaged with regards to funding being one of the three counties in Ulster outside the Six Counties. They’re getting a lot of money pumped in through the various departments in the Ulster Council. It comes with the condition that it can only be spent in the Six Counties,” Dunnion told NewsTalk.
“We’re certainly at a disadvantage – ourselves, Cavan and Monaghan – with regards to the funding that comes out of Ulster even. We have been making representation along those lines recently.”
Dunnion said that he fears that unless the imbalance of funding is addressed, Donegal and other counties are at risk of falling even further behind Dublin.
“You’d have to ask the question if Dublin are getting 47 per cent of the coaching money and you look at their strength at the moment,” he said.
“There certainly is an imbalance and that needs to be readdressed in some fashion because Dublin are only going to continue to get stronger if we don’t invest more in the other counties. Dublin is a huge county with a huge population, but our take on it would be that we would like to get more finance into the county for coaching.
“We believe that we need more, we would really be thin on the ground with full-time coaches in the county. We would certainly be advocating for more funding, whether the right thing is to take it off Dublin and give it to the other counties, I don’t know.”
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