Editorial: It would be a scandal to give £100 million of public money to the GAA Casement stadium

It is looking as if the new GAA stadium at Casement Park in west Belfast will get at least £100 million of funding. ​If we have got that figure wrong then the government is to blame – we did ask the Department of Communities about the matter. Their answer did not address it fully, but rather said they were engaging with the GAA and funding would be worked through as part of “a full business case process”.

It then gushed about the prospect of the Euro football tournament being held partly in Northern Ireland. When we asked the GAA, they said that their paltry offer of a £15 million contribution to the cost remained on the table – paltry in the context of a stadium now set to cost far above £100m. With the secretary of state Chris Heaton-Harris also gushing about the prospect of Euro matches being held at Casement Park, it could seem as if the UK government is seeing Euro as a reason to shunt a vast amount of public money at the stadium.

This will be yet another financial scandal if so. It will also reaffirm the sense that, when it comes to UK government ministers, placating political and cultural and economic demands of nationalist Ireland and of gaelic culture are one of their highest priorities in NI. Such funding for Casement would utterly dwarf the money that has gone into the stadiums for rugby and football in NI. It would also, if viewed solely in its own terms and not comparative to other sports, be a disgraceful allocation of taxpayer funds at a time of crisis in the NHS.

The Amalgamation of Northern Ireland Supporters Clubs are of course right to say that funding to GAA must be matched for football. At the same time, however, it would be outrageous to give an extra £100m+ to football when public funds are so short. A way to square the circle is for the GAA to increase massively its contribution to Casement.