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In the dark Widespread confusion over British development
officer appointments
THE British GAA community are expressing their disquiet this week over
what one senior County Board official describes as the ‘cock-up’
over the appointment of development officers in Britain.
Under the plan, each of the seven counties in Britain will have a development
officer appointed by Croke Park but when The Irish Post contacted several
County Boards this week, the response was that some of the boards don’t
know when the officers will begin working.
Some others don’t know who the development officer will be answerable
to or what the cost will be to them.
Two rounds of interviews have been held for the jobs, which will be appointed
by Croke Park. The development officers in each county will be answerable
to a development officer for Britain.
But only one of the county boards we spoke to were able to tell us that
— in fact The Irish Post informed some other County Boards of that
news.
It will also be the case that each County Board will have to fund the
appointment of their development officer to the tune of £5,000.
Each of the County Boards we spoke to backed up reservations raised by
George McGuigan, PRO of the Warwickshire Board, to The Irish Post a month
ago, in which he wondered what would happen if a development officer proved
incapable of doing the job.
At the time when the creation of these development officers was announced,
Niall Erskine, secretary of the London Board asked: “What are these
officers going to do?”
He said this week that he was not given a satisfactory answer at that
meeting or since then.
It was estimated at the time these posts were proposed that each one would
cost £50,000-a-year, bringing the total bill across all counties
to almost £400,000, although the salary for each officer is far
less than £50,000.
A Lancashire GAA spokesman told The Irish Post this week: “We feel
that Croke Park have not been forthcoming with information about this.
We have never been told about the terms of reference that the new person
will have to work towards.”
Tadhg Meehan, provincial secretary, responding to these criticisms said:
“There is no secrecy; there have been meetings since since September
2006 in which this issue was first raised.
“A booklet was given out to all counties in August at which 26 people
attended and it has been discussed since then.” |
