No letter to explain entitlement to buy tickets is removed

THE WORST thing about Wexford G.A.A’s decision to end the right of a section of past officers of the County Board to purchase All-Ireland tickets is their failure to even notify them in writing afterwards.

It has emerged that this decision was made as far back as two months ago, on June 18 in fact, when the county G.A.A. management committee dealt with the issue of access to All-Ireland final tickets.

The minutes were only published on the G.A.A. website early last week, and never sent to this newspaper despite assurances to the contrary.

Those minutes state that it had been raised at County Board level before, and it was recognised that demand outstrips supply.

While the committee agreed that the list of people entitled to purchase a ticket or tickets for All-Ireland finals should be tightened up, among the key decisions taken (to quote directly from the minutes) were:

* Entitlement to purchase tickets is to be assigned to current or former officers/roles rather than named individuals.

* The right of former County Board officers (Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer) to access tickets is maintained but no other former Coiste Bainistíochta members shall have an entitlement.

* The current situation whereby dual clubs get access to five tickets and single code clubs get three tickets (including one ticket per County Board delegate) will be maintained.

The significant announcement was lost on former officers who had been entitled to purchase two All-Ireland tickets, a decision previously agreed by County Board at the behest of then Chairman, Diarmuid Devereux.

The Coiste Bainistíochta decided to over-rule a County Board decision and, not for the first time, the County Board was consigned to the scrapheap. In actual fact, they are now an irrelevant body.

With County Board meetings behind closed doors, the public are in the dark with regard to the decision-making process, but this has now spread to the clubs, on so many different issues.

In fact, it only emerged early last week that this decision regarding ticket allocation to past officers was made back on June 18, yet the minutes of the management committee meeting were not circulated until August 14, almost two months later.

This was despite an agreement being reached between this newspaper and County Board officers, Chairman, Derek Kent, and Secretary, Margaret Doyle, that minutes would be made available as soon as possible following meetings.

Incidentally, the minutes of County Board meetings have not been made available over recent months either.

Those affected by that decision taken on June 18 did not even receive the courtesy of a letter outlining it.

It’s no coincidence that the minutes of that now infamous meeting were relayed on All-Ireland final week - a time when past officers who had previously been in receipt of tickets sought out their allocation.

As a former P.R.O., I received a curt three-word reply to my request from County Secretary, Margaret Doyle - ‘no tickets allocated’.

For others affected, there wasn’t even the courtesy of a few words of thanks for the contribution they had made to the association in the county down through the years from the management.

Yet many of those who made the decision will be in receipt of a personal allocation of tickets from central level, although the county Secretary was unable to say if those serving on provincial and national committees would be allocated further tickets, while still availing of their Wexford allocation.

This is much to the annoyance and disgust of past officers, who have been discriminated against in the worst possible manner.

And it gets worse. The County Secretary, when questioned by me on the issue, confirmed that it had been a unanimous decision of the management committee to remove the right to purchase tickets from some of their former colleagues.

This has caused particular anger among those I have spoken to, the realisation that people they had worked with so closely, over many years in several cases, would vote without even one dissenting voice to deny them tickets. It’s true what they say - out of sight, out of mind.

It will surely lead to many interesting conversations if and when these people do meet face-to-face over the coming weeks.