The GAA is a wonderful organisation. However, it seems to be drifting to a new corporate, profit-driven model in what is an amateur sport. Recently we have seen moves to a cashless ticketing system, moves to prevent clubs from displaying charity logos on their club jerseys and now we have the subscription model of viewing games. This all feeds into a view among many that the GAA is becoming gentrified, keeping the big classic hurling and football games behind a paywall. Government really cannot discuss this serious issue as if it was a spectator at one of the matches. Will we see any real action from Government to encourage the GAA to remove the paywall from big GAA matches?

Obviously, all sports fans would like to see more games free to air, particularly if their own counties are involved. As the Taoiseach has already stated this week, it would not be practical to broadcast all the games. Much of that is due to the restructuring in the past couple of years with the length of the season being shortened, which is bound to lead to fixture congestion. Ultimately, other than those events that are designated for broadcast free to air, the question of how sporting events are broadcast is primarily a matter for the sports body concerned and its broadcasting partner.

There is a separate process on the free to air. A review on that commenced last year and responses to initial public consultation have been analysed. Given the impact of the Covid pandemic, it was paused for a year to allow the sporting organisations to recover. I am currently examining the matter and expect to progress to the next phase of the review of designating more events free to air in the near future.