Sports Organisations Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-21 ============================================================ Mike Kennelly (FG), Labour Panel I welcome the Minister of State and thank him for coming to the House to take this matter. I tabled it in order to get the Minister with responsibility for sport to make a statement on the growing concern that top-level GAA matches are increasingly being placed behind paywalls despite the significant public funding the GAA receives from the Exchequer. This denies thousands of ordinary supporters access to our national games. There is growing anger and frustration about the GAA's decision to put the major championship matches behind the GAA+ paywall. This weekend, Kerry will be playing Donegal in one of the biggest games of the entire summer, and supporters are being told they must pay extra to watch it. The Minister of State visited the centre of excellence in GAA headquarters in Kerry recently. He saw for himself the parade of former greats and heroes of Kerry football on that wall, and where people are going in the context of future development as well. This Saturday's match will have the biggest players in the country involved. It is the biggest clash of all in the championship so far, and to air it on GAA+ is simply not right. People accepted GAA+ initially because they were told it would help cover games that would not otherwise be shown due to scheduling clashes. Supporters understood that. They understood the need to give smaller counties and less prominent fixtures exposure. However, we have reached a point where the biggest matches in the championship are being hidden behind a paywall. People feel deeply let down by that because the GAA is not just another sporting organisation ; it was built from the ground up by ordinary people in every parish in Ireland. It was built by volunteers standing at gates collecting tickets in the rain. It was built by coaches driving young lads and girls to training and games three nights a week. It was built by mothers and fathers washing jerseys, making sandwiches, organising fundraisers and selling raffle tickets. It was built by people mowing and lining pitches, painting dressing rooms and keeping clubs alive through sheer commitment and community spirit. Nobody did those things for profit. Gaelic games are amateur sports. People did not give up their evenings and weekends in order that one day the biggest championship games could be locked behind the paywall relating to a subscription service. That is why people feel so strongly about this. They feel the games are being taken away from the very people who built them. There is something fundamentally unfair about asking lifelong supporters, many of whom gave decades of voluntary service to the GAA, to take out another subscription just to watch their county team play in the championship. At a time when we should be doing everything possible to showcase Gaelic football and hurling stars, we are instead making them less accessible and less visible. One statement made during the week said it was like putting the family jewels in the back of the closet and hiding them away. There is another side to this that decision makers may not fully appreciate. For many elderly people living alone, watching championship matches on a Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon is a huge part of their week. It helps pass lonely hours and gives them something to look forward to. The same is true for people in hospitals and nursing homes and those who can no longer travel to matches. Many are not comfortable with streaming services. Some do not have smart TVs, smartphones or laptops. Others simply cannot afford it. They are being shut out from something that has always been part of Irish summer life. We also have to remember that the taxpayer supports the GAA substantially through the sports capital programme - I am proud that every club in Kerry has got money from it - major infrastructure funding, Sport Ireland grants and local authority investments. In 2024, the Government provided €97 million in public funding to the GAA. That is taxpayers’ money. It comes from ordinary people, who are the same people who fill the stands, keep the clubs alive and give their time freely year after year. Yet, these people are now being told they cannot watch their own national games and their own local heroes unless they pay extra, download the apps or have strong broadband. We saw this clearly over the past weekend with Tipperary versus Clare in the Munster hurling championship. RTÉ offered to show it and the GAA refused. Why refuse free access when the public already funds the association so heavily? The Government will and should continue to support the GAA. I am calling for that because of the extraordinary role it plays in Irish life and communities across the country. However, the GAA has a responsibility to remain accessible to the people who sustain it. This coming Saturday I will be listening to the Kerry versus Donegal game. I will not be attending. I will be listening to the great Kerry radio coverage by Timmy Moynihan and Ambrose O'Donovan. I will not even attend. They are bringing games back to life again for people who cannot view them. Like Mícheál Ó hEithir and our own Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh they are bringing those games back into our sitting rooms again because that is the way it is going. I call on the Minister for sport to engage directly with the GAA and urge it to change course as quickly as possible. I asked this ten days out last week and I am glad the Minister of State has come to the House to see if we can come to a conclusion and bring back the free-to-air channels for people to watch. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-21/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:59+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-21