Confusion has arisen over the terms of reference given to the committee which was established to produce the Mayo GAA Strategic Action Plan and the Mayo County Board who commissioned it. Their recommendations by the 18-strong strategic action committee were discussed for the first time at a meeting of the Mayo County Board last Thursday when there appeared to be a conflict between the board executive and the chairman of the steering committee set up to produce the action plan, Liam Horan.
It was clear the launch of the plan had got off on the wrong foot as Mr. Horan had refused to delay the launch of the report, failing to accede to a request by the officers of the board to meet with him first to discuss some of the proposal.
Sean Feeney, board secretary, said Mr Horan had ran to the local press with the report and enough time had not been spent on it

"What we don't want is what appeared in a local paper last week, suggesting take all or nothing. One particular paper, The Mayo News, overstepped the mark," he said.
Paddy McNicholas, board chairman, said it was his understanding from listening to a radio discussion on Mid West Radio and talking privately to Liam Horan that it was a case of 'all duck or no dinner'.
Mr. McNicholas said if fences needed mending he was only too happy to do so as he knew many of the people who had worked so diligently on the report and he had soldiered himself with them over a long number of years.
It was the general view of Thursday's meeting that the strategic review committee had the interest of Mayo Gaelic football at heart and had done an excellent job.

But a number of recommendations contained in the report could not be applied as they were in breach of the GAA's own rules.
It was also clear from the meeting that some of the recommendations proposed by Mr. Horan's committee were open to different interpretation.
And the suggestion by him that it was 'all duck or no dinner', meaning the whole report had to be adopted or none of it, did not meet with general acceptance.
The county board accepted there was a lot of merit in the report and felt at least 70 per cent of it could be included as part of the overall report which the board has to present to Croke Park by this summer.

One very contentious point concerned the suggestion that the board had not made a full disclosure of its finances.
This led to a lively debate but the treasurer and auditor of the board said they did not feel there was an affront to their integrity and the finances were always presented to convention on an annual basis.
It was pointed out sponsors, in particular, may not want the amount of their sponsorship revealed for public consumption while certain data had to be protected from a legal point of view.
The proposal to appoint a director of coaching was another touchy area and it was pointed out a coaching structure was already in place and, if it were altered, the board could lose important funding from Croke Park.

Picture: Sean Feeney. . .70 per cent of report is fine but some of it is in breach of the GAA's own rules.

 

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