Aughrim floodlighting key

AVONDALE’S Billy Byrne completed a five-year stretch as Wicklow GAA development officer on Monday night. Byrne’s tenure has coincided with some major developments in terms of infrastructure and club development plans.

In his address to convention he suggested that floodlighting in Aughrim will be one of the biggest projects to be undertaken if the new committee decide to go down that road.

‘Just to address you as the outgoing development office. Firstly, I’d like to thank all the clubs during my five years, I hope you got some use from me, some of ye might not have got anything, but we were there to help out as much as we could.

‘On the club scene, we tried to get as many clubs as we could to incorporate their (club) plans. We got 18 over the line, and we have 14 left to try and finish off the plan.

‘As you are aware, the development officer role is now changing, and the new development officer, whoever that person is, will only be dealing with club planning and club education. And that’s not a bad thing, really.

‘But the club plan is going to become as important as anything that goes on in your club. So, I would encourage all clubs to row in behind and get the plan done, and avail of as many courses as you can, because there are a lot of courses coming up.

‘The really big issue out there is data protection. It’s a major, major issue for us all, even here on the top table; how we deal with information, what we do with it, how we store it, why do we have it, and how long do we have it for?

‘They’re all very simplistic questions that auditors will be coming around, will be going into clubs and will be looking for that information.

‘We just have to be very, very careful about how we do and how we carry out our business moving forward.

‘As you can see from the development, we started a few works here in Aughrim. We intend on doing more. There’s more works started.

‘The big development for us downstream would be floodlighting Aughrim here, that’s a major, major project downstream and that would be up to the new management to make decisions on whether they want to move on that.

‘Moving on to Ballinakill, it’s an ongoing project. It’s an every day, every week job. We are thankful to have our project manager up there who is keeping an eye on things, and hopefully that will continue. I’d like ot thank the development committee, we don’t meet as many times as we are supposed to meet but I can assure you that there are a lot of things going on in the background.

‘The completion of the lights on pitches 1 and 2 in Ballinakill has really helped the issue up there with regard to pitches. We’re not finished yet. We’re entering into a drainage programme now, we have started it, and we hope that this programme will, eventually, solve a lot of the issues up there.

‘There are two individuals I want to thank personally. One of them is Michael Anthony O’Neill Electrical. Every time he sees the treble 9 coming up on the phone, he must wonder what does this lad want now?

‘I will say, though, for an individual that is local, and his company, the work that they put in to help us out here in Wicklow GAA, I couldn’t thank him enough, especially in Ballinakill. It’s a phone call at 8am in the morning and someone is out at 8.30am or 9am. So, I just can’t thank him enough. He’s been a great servant to Wicklow and he’s fantastic to have.

‘The other one is Seamus O’Neill Plumbing. He’s only a phone call away and he’s on there every single minute of the day and I can’t thank those lads enough,’ he added.

Billy Byrne went on to offer his thanks to the CE Scheme workers in Ballinakill.

‘Without them we’d be absolutely lost. They’re a fantastic group of people,’ he added.

‘Finally, I want to thank the family for putting up with me being at home and all that. I want to thank all members of management for their support for me over the years and I wish the new person coming into the role every success.

Wicklow GAA’s new development officer is Fintan Fanning.