WE DON’T HAVE MONEY TO BURN

State has no duty of care to inter-county players, so talk of a tax exemption for amateur sportsmen is way off the mark in a country plagued by far more serious issues

WE DOFF the hat to Shane Ross this week as he boldly backed the IRFU’s 2023 Rugby World Cup bid with €320million of our money.

‘It’s a very big figure but the likelihood of the cheque being cashed is very unlikely. On past records we should make a profit,’ the Minster for Sport told the Dáil, when queried on the wisdom of committing the taxpayer to taking on all of the risk of underwriting the bid.

It is precisely that kind of guarded optimism which has served us so well in the past, like the time that the late Brian Lenihan proclaimed that the bank guarantee would be ‘the cheapest bail-out’ in history. Sure, what could possibly go wrong? As the minister pointed out, ‘past records’ show there are few handier state nixers than running the odd World Cup or Olympic Games to give the end of year accounts a boost.

Or perhaps not… South Africa got just 10 per cent back of the £3billion invested in hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

It is harder to put a number on how many shirts were stripped off Brazilian backs four years later, but suffice to say that the $100million legacy payment FIFA handed over to their hosts was well shy of the estimated $15billion — the bulk of it public funding — invested.

Brazil’s legacy is to be found in disintegrating stadia and a budgetary hole that will take a lot of time and even more misery in the filling.

Okay, we are talking on a much smaller scale, but there may well be legacy issues here too.

€30million of state funding was approved for the development of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, with the GAA’s support of the World Cup bid making than investment easier to justify, yet questions remain unanswered as to the final cost of a project that started out at €70m and was recalibrated to €78m.

But it is not so much the money committed this week that offends, it was the fact a ‘do-nothing’ Dáil was moved to pass emergency legislation to get this through.

We live and pay tax in a country that is faced with a horrendous homeless crisis, a chronically malfunctioning health service and one where its most vulnerable citizens (not least those with disabilities) are not in receipt of the supports needed.

Set against that backdrop, who could not take offence that the only time the legislature has been stirred into ‘emergency’ action is to ensure that in six years’ time we get to see Tonga play Fiji in the flesh. No issue with priorities there, then. If populism is what electoral politics strives for, backing sport is usually one of the safer bets in securing it.

Charlie Haughey learned that long before selfie-time when he won the Tour de France and Stephen Roche came along for the ride.

Perhaps that is what junior minister Brendan Griffin was striving for when he flew the kite this week suggesting that there was an argument for inter-county players — along with other amateur sports people — receiving tax exemptions. Exactly where is that need? These players already have a triple recompense structure in place. They are in receipt of expenses (which were increased last year) from their county boards, annual state grants that vary from €1,707 to €745 for every player, while in the latest deal negotiated between the GAA/GPA, €1.2million was set aside to refund players for vouched nutritional expenses.

On top of that the GAA have provided the GPA with €18million over three years, money which is primary invested in programmes and supports that are justified on the basis these players are ‘elite amateur’ sportsmen. This is such a barn-pot suggestion that it is hard to know where to start. Its genesis is perhaps rooted in Charlie McGreevey’s tax rebate carrot which rewarded professional stay-athome athletes — it would form the basis of the argument for the introduction of state-funded GPA grants — but going down the road of exempting tax from income earned because a person excels at their particular hobby is more than just stretching reason, it is making a nonsense of it. After all, this column could watch Sky

Sports for Ireland so how do we get the VAT reclaimed on the leather recliner that has been worn threadbare?

Seriously, could someone explain why the State has a duty of care to inter-county players? And what are those care issues?

If they do exist, should they not be dealt with by the association they are members of rather than by a State with far more pressing needs on its limited resources?

And if any such tax exemption applied, what would be the final cost given that it would also have to be extended on the grounds of gender equality to camogie players and our lady footballers?

And how exactly would it be applied to those who pay their tax under a different jurisdiction? We can see it now, Arlene knocking on Theresa’s door…

‘Listen, thanks for the billion and the hard border, but we’ve a problem with the Tyrone Camogs looking for a tax exemption, so we’ll have to pull the plug...’

If you didn’t laugh, you really would cry.