Donegal chairman: Ulster trio at a disadvantage

February 11, 2016

Donegal chairman Sean Dunnion

Donegal chairman Sean Dunnion believes that they, along with Cavan and Monaghan, are at a disadvantage when it comes to funding.

Speaking to The Irish News, Dunnion referred to the GAA's financial report, which was made public last week and revealed that Dublin received €1,460,400 from the association for games development last year, compared to €1,273,665 for Ulster.

Donegal received €40,200 of that latter figure and Dunnion pointed out that they there weren't as many avenues to go down in comparison to most of their neighbouring counties.

"We're particularly disadvantaged with regards to funding being one of the three counties in Ulster outside the Six Counties," said the Four Masters clubman.

"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.

"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 feels there's a risk of counties falling further behind Dublin if the problem is not rectified.

"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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