THE GAA insist they are committed to fulfilling the Casement Park project despite admitting that the funding for it “will not be available in the short to medium term”.
Fresh doubts were cast over the project’s viability yesterday as the association’s finance director Ger Mulryan indicated that the money to cover their original £15m commitment would not be available until the huge financial losses of last year and this year are “replenished”.
The west Belfast stadium’s redevelopment has been in the pipeline since 2013 as part of the NI executive’s regional stadium project, which has seen the IFA’s National Stadium and Ulster Rugby’s Kingspan Stadium already completed.
Speaking following the publication of the GAA’s annual reports, Mulryan said when asked if the £15m would be available if work were due to start today: “As part of the Casement Park project, a final funding plan has to be agreed. There won’t be any work completed until there’s a funding plan in place.
“How we plug into that funding plan – our commitment is £15m, it’s stated on the record, there’s no-one stepping out of that commitment.
“Equally, the funding plan has not been finalised. We will be actively partaking in any funding plan as it’s put together.
“Our natural ask in the current climate would be that we put our commitment towards the back end of the project if possible. But that funding plan has to be finalised and agreed.”
Unionist politicians have been exerting public pressure on the executive over how the rising costs of the project will be met.
The final figure will be north of £110m, a significant increase on the original £77.5m that was agreed, with the executive contributing £62.5m from the public purse.
GAA director general Tom Ryan was equally determined to state the association’s commitment to the project but didn’t contradict Mulryan’s assertion that the money would not be available in the near future.
“Casement Park is not a medium or long term project and that is not being facetious when I say that. That has been a project for a generation.
“I do believe we will get out of this. On the financial side of things it is going to have a knock-on effect this year and perhaps next year as well.
“Genuinely, I don’t how long it is going to take, how long it is going to be before all the financial constraints are lifted and we are going to be back in the happy financial situation we were previously and we just have to be careful in the short-term.
“It is not specific to Casement Park, it is everywhere. The ambition is to do the same, the commitment is to do the same, it is just the pace with which we do things has to be tempered a bit.
“The GAA is not unique in that; it is the same with the public exchequer and a lot of enterprises all over the country. We are still committed to it.”
Casement Park project sponsor Stephen McGeehan reiterated the GAA’s position that the “majority” of the extra cost should be met by the executive rather than the sporting body.
“The Department of the Environment were found to have handled our first application unlawfully. We’ve now been waiting almost four years for the Department of Infrastructure to decide on our second application.
“It’s our view that public sector processes that have caused the significant delays in the project. The majority of those costs should be covered by the public sector, is our position.”
