Galway County Board chairman Pat Kearney has described as “damning” the findings of an independent audit of Galway GAA finances, which was presented to club delegates on Tuesday night.
The audit, carried out by Mazars on behalf of Croke Park, concluded that there had been no oversight of financial policies in recent years. No Galway GAA officer, past or present, was mentioned in the report, nor was there any figure provided as to the amount of money which was mismanaged.
Galway chairman Pat Kearney said there was no finding of malpractice. Instead, widespread “poor practice” was highlighted.
One of the chief recommendations arising from the audit was the creation of an operations manager position, to be filled by someone with a background in accounting and finance. The full-time post of Galway secretary was vacated by John Hynes in September and Kearney has suggested this position may be downgraded to a voluntary role, with the allocated secretary’s wage being diverted to the new operations manager. The chairman is hopeful of filling this new post in the spring of 2019.
“The findings were pretty damning, in a way,” Kearney told Galway Bay FM yesterday. “They said there was no clear oversight of financial policies in Galway. They looked at ticketing processes, gates processes, credit cards, treasury management, financial control and sponsorship issues. They said we really need to improve on our working procedures going forward. We are a €5m industry in Galway.
We must have the proper and appropriate financial oversight in place. We have to try and improve ourselves, going forward.
Kearney continued: “Galway GAA is a huge operation and finance is one element of it, which we have to ensure we get right. Delegates were upset. People who have given their lives to GAA were disappointed to see that things weren’t done as they thought they should have been done. We are in good shape now, but we’ll be in better shape next year and the year after.”
Delegates from 62 of the 81 clubs in Galway attended Tuesday’s meeting. Also present was GAA director of finance Ger Mulryan.
The Galway executive committee met last night to prepare a detailed statement which is to be delivered at next Monday’s Galway GAA convention. The county’s finances for this year, to be outlined next week, are expected to make for positive reading.