Community Group to stage Protest at GAA Congress
April 15, 2011The protest with banners will take place outside the entrance gates of the Hotel. The GAA in Croke Park having failed in its attempt to obstruct the Bar Club license application for the Handball & Community Centre recently indicated its intention to seek to EVICT the community from its Centre.
This is despite the fact that:
· all 17 local politicians and all local residents groups also objected to Croke Parks plans to demolish and replace the existing centre with a centre that Croke Park would control and which had no adequate community facilities. The matter is currently with An Bord Pleanala and a decision has been delayed now for almost 5 months.
· the Community has controlled and maintained the existing Centre for 40 years and invested over €4m of their own money in the Centre
· Croke Park were placed in a position of trust, the Club's constitution to which Croke Park officials helped draw up states that the Centre was VESTED in them.
Please also find attached a copy of the special letter from the community to GAA delegates and a copy of the letter sent to all politicians and Senators in the last government and to which letter almost all cabinet members replied including the Taoiseach, and the leaders of the main Dail parties.
Yours sincerely,
Eamon O'Brien. Fintan Farrelly,
Chairman, Croke Park Streets Committees. Chairman, Handball & Community Centre.
15th April 2011
Letter to GAA Delegates
Dear Delegate,
We write to let you know of the terrible situation we find ourselves in due to the actions of the Croke Park GAA. Straight away let us say that we love the GAA and recognize its enormous contribution to Ireland's economic and cultural development.
Croke Park issue eviction order to our community
However we have grown to despise the money and power hungry Croke Park that constantly disrupts our lives and that have now stooped so low that they are trying to evict our community from the Handball & Community Centre that we have enjoyed and maintained for 40 years - see Newsletter enclosed. Our barrister requested an estimate of the community's investment in the Centre and this came out at €4m with a present value of €5.8m, and this excludes a major amount of social capital. No other community would tolerate this and we are pleading with you as a grassroots delegate to request Croke Park's pin-stripe bullies, as they have been referred to in our community, to show some spark of decency and consideration for the community on whose backs they make so much money.
When our Handball & Community Centre was built Croke Park provided the land with the community, major companies, GAA units, Dublin Corporation and the Department of Education all contributing and that is why it was both a Handball and Community Centre. According to our Club Constitution it is VESTED in the GAA. This is a position of trust that is now being treacherously ignored. We are expected to fight Croke Parks lawyers to save what is rightfully ours. Croke Park hopes we will run out of money. However our politicians, whose objections to planning Croke Park sought to interfere with in spite of GAA Rule 1.11 (see letter to TD's attached), signed a pledge, February 23rd 2011, to back legal action against Croke Park. This is the awful situation we are in. Croke Park asked for a counter proposal - we prepared one backed by the whole community - and they then ignored us.
Croke Park propose a €9 million White Elephant while GAA Clubs are strapped for cash
It is absolutely extraordinary that Croke Park want to waste so much money on a so-called state of the art handball centre and offices for 40 Handball staff (don't laugh - we can prove this as we insisted on a full recording of the two-day Bord Pleanala hearing) - and this is despite the fact that Handball exploded from two to only 3 staff in the Celtic Tiger years and had a bank balance of just over €900 at the end of 2010. Forty staff would cost circa €2.5m. GAA Handball even recently had to cancel its Congress due to breach of their own rules.
Apparently Croke Park did not like our counter proposal as we said we could provide similar facilities for €3m using one of Croke Park's 3 derelict sites and retaining the existing facility. Ask any delegate - what would you spend on offices for 40, 6 handball alleys and one community room. The writer worked in finance and never have I seen such an incomplete proposal as Croke Park produced - there was no feasibility study or business plan included. Not only that but they had the 60x30 alley turned the wrong way and it had incorrect measurements. It was a fiasco. Check for yourself - Dublin City Council Planning reference 2244/10.
Croke Park Streets Committee Motion - 'Re-claiming our Streets - Croke Park Streets Carnival on day of All-Ireland Final'
Such is the level of discontent within our Community, with Croke Park now seeking to throw our children and old people on to the streets, that there is a motion coming before our AGM that a 'Croke Park Streets Carnival' be organized the day of an All-Ireland Final to teach Croke Park that the streets belong to the people and that the people will be around long after Croke Park is gone.
Now is the time for cool heads and the real community spirit of GAA leadership to manifest itself
The GAA is heading in to difficult times and its current leaders Uachtaran Cooney and PACT Chairman Cawley, respectively FAS executive and ex AIB banker, should appreciate the danger of bulling on ahead and ignoring the realities of their current environment. Our community is a 'significant reality' and Croke Park taking the old landlord bullying approach will see that come back to bite in the end. We are sick of Croke Park's mis-representations and spin and bullying. As a delegate don't be surprised if the day comes when Croke Park will tell you what you may or may not have an opinion on!
We wish Liam O'Neill, the new Uachtaran, every success and we hope his attitude to our community will be more humane and considerate than we have experienced from Croke Park to date. It's time for some core values of community to surface within Croke Park. We have had enough of corporate bullying!
Yours sincerely, Yours sincerely,
Eamon O'Brien Fintan Farrelly
Chairman, Croke Park Streets Committees. Chairman, Handball & Community Centre
Copy of letter sent to all TD's & Senators in last Dail/Senate
Dear -----,
We write to let you know of the great damage the Croke Park GAA wish to inflict on our community and to bring to your notice an attempt by Croke Park GAA authorities to interfere in the planning process.
Community Newsletter with disturbing revelations about the GAA in Croke Park
We enclose a copy of our Newsletter that explains how the Croke Park GAA are trying to demolish our Handball Social Club and Community Centre and throw our young and old out on the streets and this is DESPITE the fact that 17 local politicians, 9 Residents Committees, 1 Action Committee, the Dublin Handball County Board and the St. Vincent de Paul have all opposed the Croke Park GAA plans. Indeed all gave written support to a counter proposal of the existing Centre's Management Committee, described by local politicians as one of the best ever presented in their constituency area. If you want to know how badly the Croke Park GAA treated our community please read the mid section of the Newsletter entitled 'The Croke Park GAA and their 'Dirty Tricks' and if you have just a little bit more time read what the Residents Alliance chairman wrote (pg 13) about Croke Park abuse from the wider community perspective. We also make a clear distinction between the GAA who have contributed enormously to our Community and the GAA in Croke Park that have acted despicably against our community.
Croke Park GAA attempt to interfere in the Planning Process - Is this not corruption?
It was initially astonishing to us that the GAA in Croke Park ignored our democratically elected politicians; that was until we received confirmation that senior members of the GAA in Croke Park had approached our local politicians, and senior party politicians requesting that they encourage certain local politicians to withdraw their existing appeal to the Croke Park GAA plans (DCC Planning Ref 2244/10, An Bord Pleanala Ref PL 29N 237183) to demolish our Handball Social Club and Community Centre. Naturally our local politicians had objected to such a loss to our community. In light of all the revelations of corruption in the Planning Process please let us know what is the difference between bribing politicians to permit a planning project and the lobbying of party politicians with the clearly implied carrot / stick of the favourable / unfavourable political disposition of a huge national organisation (the GAA) towards a particular party if their request to withdraw the appeal is either granted or ignored.
We were disgusted when we heard of the foregoing not only because of the clear interference in the planning process but also because the GAA has a Rule 1.11 Non-Party Political that states that 'The Association shall be non-party political. Party political questions shall not be discussed at its meetings, and no Committee, Club, Council or representative thereof shall take part, as such, in any party political movement.' We believe the GAA in Croke Park have breached their own rule, in trying to influence an individual political party's position in relation to a particular planning issue. So while it may be in order for the GAA to lobby the government it is not appropriate for them to lobby party political representatives.
We thank those national politicians that resisted the Croke Park GAA's attempts to have the local politicians appeal withdrawn and we thank our local politicians for having the integrity to stand by their principles.
For many years our democracy sought the separation of church and state and having achieved that it is not appropriate that the Croke Park GAA authorities should now seek to climb up on the backs of our politicians, and we say this without prejudice to the undoubted contributions of certain parts of the Church and the GAA to our country over the years.
No further tax payer's money should be given to the GAA in Croke Park until their attempted interference in the planning application DCC Ref 2244/10 is investigated
Following the foregoing we now call on the Minister for Tourism Culture and Sport, Mary Hanafin, to put a hold on all payments of grants to the GAA in Croke Park until such time as there has been a thorough investigation of the attempt to interfere in the Planning Process by the Croke Park GAA.
We also wish to bring to your attention the fact that An Roinn Oideachais and Dublin Corporation provided grants for the provision of our community facility that the Croke Park GAA propose to demolish in breach of the Trust placed in them. We intend, along with many other matters perpetrated by the Croke Park GAA against our community, to refer the issue of the Croke Park GAA's interference in the planning process to the 'Justice for the Community Committee' referred to in page 3 of our Newsletter.
What you can do to help us?
We know that you are very busy, but we feel that any fair minded person will judge that wrong is being done to our community that has suffered so much on behalf of the GAA in Croke Park, and you could:
· Write to Croke Park to complain about the manner in which they are treating the community around Croke Park and to point out that the existing Handball Social Club & Community Centre facility is vital to our community and there is no need to demolish it as other options exist.
· Ask the Croke Park GAA to accept/work around the existing Centre's compromise proposal and build their proposed new Handball and Office Centre on one of their derelict sites (see pg 5 newsletter) that they purchased beside Croke Park having received over €120m from the government.
· Support our call for an investigation into the attempted interference in the planning process by the Croke Park GAA authorities in regard to An Bord Pleanala Ref PL 29N 237183.
· Treat with caution all information provided to you by Croke Park authorities in relation to our issue as Croke Park authorities have already misrepresented certain matters in this regard. This may become more apparent to you following commencement of legal actions by the 'Justice for the Community Committee', currently under review, against PACT/GAA. Refer back to us for clarification on any matter if you wish.
Please note that the GAA's corporate entity Pairc An Chrocaigh Teo is now tasked to make profit of €4m per year, see 2009 GAA Annual Report and this may explain Croke Park's actions - profit before people!
Mise le Meas,
Eamon O'Brien Tweet
