Danny Healy-Rae: Fix Kerry Match Access, Protect Rural Clubs

Thank you very much, Cathaoirleach. I'm very glad to get the opportunity, first of all, to welcome you here and Shane, my long-standing friend and the people behind. You're doing great work and we want to thank you very much for all that you do for our youngsters on the playing pitches throughout the country. And I have actually five grandchildren now and they're being taken around to all these activities, hurling and football, and it's a great outlet for youngsters and if we start them off right, hopefully they'll keep going right and we want to thank you for that. And I also want to thank you very much for placing the emphasis on planning and one-off planning in rural areas. It's something that I've been raising since I went into Kerry County Council first a long time ago and since I came up here and we're waiting for the new planning guidelines that hopefully will open up some of the needs that we have and people that we've been highlighting in many areas that can't get permission in rural areas. But there's also a problem that extends inside in the larger towns where when a new estate is built in one side of town it can take a lot of people away from a traditional club and create an imbalance and that has to be dealt with as well. It's happening a lot and I know a lot of traditional clubs that are in decline inside in bigger towns where the thing has gone lopsided more than ever before. So it brings me to a very important thing that's happening this weekend. Kerry supporters are in trouble if they can't go to the match and we're told that the capacity in Kildare for this match is only 6,000. Should want to be Houdini to get into that and be a very fit man or whatever. But there are thousands of supporters at home in Kerry and they're actually outraged that they won't be able to see the match in any screen of any kind. Paywall or else it's not to be seen or not to be had and that's in this day and age it's ridiculous. After all you know Kerry did win dollar in last year and maybe we're only going average enough at the present time but we're not beat yet and they'll have to beat us before they take it off us. But there's a lot of people at home and they're outraged. Elderly people, people with disabilities, people that just don't have the money to go to Kildare one way or another. And yes we'll be very content to listen to Tambros O'Donovan and Tim Moynihan and the Kerry Radio and they'll give a good account of it. But that's putting us back to the fact is when we only had radios. Now we've all types of screens and televisions and everything and I'm appealing to you here to take the message from this Ad Hoc Committee meeting here today to do something about it before the weekend. Today is only Wednesday and a lot of things, a lot of matches were won in the final minute but we're depending on you to take a message out here today to do something to help us so that elderly, disabled people and all those kind of people that can't travel could do something about it. All right Deputy, I'm going to let yourself Peter answer that ecumenical matter. Do you want to answer it Benny? On the point of taking the message back, yes we will. What? We'll take the message back. I think you make a really important point about the imbalance of clubs and the movement of people and what we can see in a lot of places is traditional strong clubs in lots of our towns, maybe not as strong as they have been in the past through success and otherwise, but what we can see strongly is the success of GA clubs, it almost matches the movement of people from a housing perspective. So we've seen it in places like Longford, we've seen it in Cork, in Cork City, maybe in Killarney you might suggest as well, something similar with the likes of Fossa and Kilcommon and so on, on the outskirts of Killarney. So we've strongly seen those things and we have to, I suppose, recognise that sometimes there's a life cycle to towns and housing estates. You know, maybe it starts off with families and young people and then young people move up and grow out, move away and they live somewhere else and it's the parents and subsequently grandparents of kids playing games who then live in those housing estates. But we're very, very conscious of trying to ensure that our clubs who are in urban areas are able to maintain their standard, their status and a lot of the existing rules and regulations within the GA have insulated us from some of the demographic changes. But I suppose one of the points we're making here is that eventually the demographic changes, the tidal wave is just going to overtake those as well. Can I just answer something there? Because the impression might go out of here that I don't, that I have something against Fossa teams like that. Certainly not. And we appreciate the skill of the Clifford Brothers and many others in the Fossa team and appreciate them very, very much. But it is happening in other towns. I wouldn't actually think you're talking about Killarney at all. But it's something to be, you know, that has to be dealt with. And there's always been trouble of clubs poaching players from each other or whatever. But we just have to help the clubs maybe that are in trouble. And again, a boo to Fossa because we're very proud of the Cliffords and the many players that the Fossa team have. Indeed, the Ballymacs and the Dingle and the Greater Trinidad, those teams that are keeping Kerry on the map football-wise. And we appreciate them very much. And they're in their own, they're doing more for football and indeed hurling than we ever thought possible. Thank you very much.