FEAR IT ALL BURNS OUT & FADES AWAY

Jarlath: We're gunner have to do something before it's too late to realign.

- BY PAUL KEANE

GAA PRESIDENT Jarlath Burns says rural depopulation and urban overload are serious threats to the future of the association.

Speaking at the launch of the GAA's report on Ireland's dramatic demographic changes, Burns said that we'll be 'too far gone' in 10 years' time if we don’t address the issues now.

Burns said 'we were warned about this 50 years ago by the McNamee Commission - and now we have the consequences'.

And he called on the current government to row in behind the GAA’s plans to address the situation - because ‘the population shift and the GAA clubs do not align anymore’.

Burns said: "I think there needs to be a realignment and a rethinking of the profound impact that the GAA has on communities.

"For example, there is nowhere in the GAA’s Official Guide that states you should have a walking track around your ground. And yet, why am I going around the country opening walking tracks?

"It's because the GAA is focused on community, improving the lives of people and making the GAA club a place where people can come.

"It's that third place; the first being home, the second being work, the third being a place where everybody knows your name, where there's safety and sameness, all of the family can be there, and it's a safe space for us to talk and be ourselves.

"The human condition needs that place - and we provide it free of charge. We do so much extra and it's just putting a value on that now.

"Is that valuable enough for us all as a community to say, 'Let's try to reverse what has happened?'.

"Because if we come back to this in 10 years' time having done nothing, we are too far gone."

BY PAUL KEANE