DILLON HAILS GAA’S SPIRIT
Crisis puts Mayo TD in at the deep end
“The job now is to build up confidence”
ALAN DILLON’S political career is dancing to the delayed rhythm of his early years with Mayo, when Championship fixtures came drip-fed.
It is almost seven weeks since — in keeping with a football career where nothing came easy — he was elected to Dáil Éireann on the seventh count, but it has made for a slow start. ‘We have had only two sittings in the last six weeks so these are strange times,’ admits Dillon, although his workload as a TD in a large rural constituency continues at pace. Inevitably, the deadly circumstances which have limited his appearances in the chamber is also dominating his early weeks as an elected representative, as the social and economic fallout of the coronavirus hits hard. ‘I am back down in Mayo and I am taking a lot of questions from constituents who are unemployed as a consequence. ‘We are a rural constituency which is very dependent on tourism, on SMEs; on local enterprise and a lot of those have been wiped out. ‘It is very difficult for people to have their livelihoods put on hold with no timeline in sight. The job we have now is to build confidence that measures will be put in place to ensure some basic level of income is there to ensure that when they are in a position to go back to work that their businesses are still viable and they have a bright future ahead,’ explains Dillon. Against that backdrop, sport can feel almost inconsequential. But this is Mayo and Dillon, a two-time All-Star in his 15 years of service who does not need telling that the suspension of GAA activity and a championship summer shrouded in doubt is adding to stress levels in desperate times. ‘You talk about having some sense of direction in your life and it is probably very difficult for people to cope with what to do on four or five nights of the week when they have nothing else to talk about when there is no sport on.
‘We all love following our national sport and it is a lot of people’s big passion, especially here in Mayo.
‘It takes time to adjust to but sport is one thing, the importance of your heath and the important thing is that people’s welfare is put first is fundamental.’
But when the shutters roll backup, Dillon expects the GAA to take a trip back to its future with a provincial–based knockout championship; one that will be played over less than a handful of weeks unlike his early seasons when it was played over months.
Indeed, Dillon was playing in his second All-Ireland minor final inside 12 months in 2000, the last time the senior championship was played in the absence of a qualifier safety net.
Having never had the experience – he made his championship debut in 2003 – as a player, he is looking forward to the cut and thrust an old style championship
will deliver as a spectator, predicting it will separate ‘the men from the boys.’
‘It will be interesting and it looks like they will have to adapt that strategy. It will make the games more exciting because everything will be on the line.
‘We will only see that now at the All-Ireland quarter-final stage in the championship when games really mattered, whereas at provincial level people always knew they had a second chance if they were beaten.’
However, when the GAA will get the green light to start again remains a shot in the dark,’ admits Dillon.
‘This will have to be over a sustained period to build confidence and ensure that the curve is moving in the right direction.
‘At the minute we are in a pandemic, that then has to go into an epidemic and then we have to enter phases where we don’t have sporadic phases and we don’t have clusters.
‘I am sure as the surge comes the Government will have to introduce more restrictions in different areas so it is very difficult to see where in the calendar we will be when things will be in more of a containment phase and we see some light at the end of the tunnel.
‘That is very hard to predict and the experts are trying to model that but it is too early to say.’
For now the emphasis has to be on protecting the most vulnerable in a time where regular access to supports are no longer directly accessible, arguing that even as swathes of the workforce work remotely, technology is not everyone’s friend.
‘There are a lot of people who don’t have laptops or printers, but who would walk into their social welfare offices to pick up a form and get some help, but now when those offices are closed where do they go?
‘We see a lot of people talking about the anxiety of “well if we don’t get that form in” then the whole mental health issue comes into play because they feel they are not in control of the situation.
‘It is elderly people who are the most vulnerable when it comes to technology and how we do things.
‘And then it is compounded by the current situation where they may be afraid to reach out for help, so that is why we really need to be mindful of all their needs, which is why have to be so supportive of that section of the community, especially in rural Ireland.’
At grassroots level, it is in that support role the GAA is playing the game of its life, suggests Dillon.
‘The one thing the GAA does is that it connects people. That community aspect, that volunteerism, helping your neighbour is extremely strong because it is part of our GAA roots especially in the worst of times, which is where we are now.’