How social enterprise and working with Government can help GAA tackle demographics challenge

By John Harrington

Years from now we may look back on the charter signed by the GAA and Association of Irish Local Government last month as a seminal moment in the history of the Association.

It is essentially a joint agreement to work together with Local Government in Ireland to address the challenges posed by Ireland’s changing demographics.

The scale of those challenges are now well known thanks to the Trojan work of the GAA’s National Demographics Committee which this year published a set of recommendations aimed at tackling them.

Among them was the desire to build an all-island strategy to influence government and local authorities and, in doing so, secure zoning, development levies, and funding for GAA facilities.

As part of this, a dual-use model would be pursued which would promote shared facility partnerships and encourage and support rural social enterprise partnerships.

A social enterprise is a business that trades in goods or services to achieve a positive social, societal, or environmental impact in their community rather than maximising profit for owners or shareholders, so ethically they very much belong to the same family as GAA clubs.

GAA Demographics Committee member, Senan Cooke, knows more than most in this country about rural social enterprise and the benefits that can be gained from working with local Government.

The former Kilkenny hurler has lived for most of his life in Dunhill in Waterford where he helped establish DFBA (Dunhill, Fenor, Boatstrand, Annestown) Community Enterprises which has been behind outstanding social enterprises such as the Copper Coast Unesco Global Geopark and Dunhill Eco Park to name just two of many.

He's also a founding member the Comhair Comaraigh Network which helps communities and social enterprises in the Comeragh region of Waterford to access a wide range of resources they may not otherwise realise might be available to them.

Cooke has literally written the book, ‘The Enterprising Community’, on how communities can create wealth and develop social cohesion through social enterprise that involves collaboration between local organisations and state agencies.

He’s convinced that if the GAA and the Government work together to tackle the challenges posted by Ireland’s shifting demographics then both would benefit hugely from the alliance.

“If the GAA and the Government really work together then there would be revolution in the country because there are loads of resources but most of them aren't known, some of them are dormant, and they're not accessible to GAA clubs,” says Cooke.

“One of the things we've agreed is that the GAA will set up a Club Development Unit in Croke Park and have a Development Officer in every county.

“If the Development Unit can work with the different departments across the whole of the Government, with all the departments and all the agencies, they'd find resources they never imagined existed.

“The Government have a spatial strategy which is about decentralising housing, industry, and infrastructure out to the Midlands and to the West.

“What they want is what the GAA want. The GAA want it for their clubs and the Government want it for communities.

“If Croke Park and a Club Development Unit could identify all the current resources that are available it would be powerful. Nine tenths of the clubs in the country have no idea about them but they're there.

“The Government only have to use their resources better to get what they want for communities around the country and if they do that then the GAA gets all they want. It's the most simple thing and would be the best thing that ever happened this country.

“You're going nowhere if you're not working with the Government and the best thing about it is that the GAA are offering to implement Government policy. That's a big thing. We're not asking the Government to do something different or to do something extra.

“We're offering the Government the strongest voluntary organisation on the ground and saying to the Government that we want to work with you to implement your policies and revive those communities in areas of disadvantage or decline.

“If they want to believe it they should come down to Dunhill and talk to people and look at it and be told about it.”

Many of the same people involved in Dunhill Ecopark which hosts 35 small businesses are also heavily involved in the local GAA club and there’s a vibrant symbiotic relationship between the two.

Cooke has no doubt this could be replicated throughout the country because, as he details in his book, ‘The Enterprising Community’, there are already plenty of other similar examples where social partnerships reinvigorated their communities economically and socially and in doing so also reinvigorated their local GAA club.

“GAA and social enterprise are very similar and normally you will have common members,” says Cooke.

“The GAA and social enterprise are brothers and sisters in so far as they both represent the community, and they both try to develop the community while making the most of the assets that they have.

“Social enterprise allows volunteers in their own community to join them and work with them so it's very similar to the GAA club.

“We're not under any circumstances a once off. There are hundreds of Dunhills around the country and I know most of them.

“The two great organisations in Loughmore-Castleiney at the minute are the GAA club and the Tea Rooms which is a social enterprise set up by Mary Fogarty.

“Loughmore's story is one of a community that was almost gone, that the shops were gone, the pubs were gone, and all that was left was the GAA club. Now the Tea Rooms and the GAA club are at the heart of a thriving community.

“Another really good example is Ferbane Technological Park which was developed by Brian Gavin and which is a great set-up.”

They might not realise it, but many GAA clubs are themselves social enterprises already and so are eligible for state supports they know nothing about yet.

Any GAA club that trades, be that through a bar or astro-pitches they rent out for example, are effectively social enterprises.

“In every county there's at least 10 clubs that are actually social enterprises but are not recognised as that,” says Cooke.

“If the Government saw GAA club as social enterprises we'd be entitled to a load of resources.

“We're only beginning to realise all of that, but our time has come now.

“There's no point in dodging, weaving and ducking. Our time has come. A GAA club that's trading in any shape or form should be recognised as a social enterprise. Now, that would really put the cat amongst the pigeons.

“I can direct you to at least 200 supports for social enterprise, and that's not even including EU supports.

“The Government who are providing these resources have the responsibility to make sure that everyone knows about them and that everyone understands them and the GAA can help them do that.”

The kernel of the issue of demographics from a GAA point of view is that rural GAA clubs are struggling to field teams because they just don’t have the numbers, while urban GAA clubs have major issues catering for the surging populations in their catchment areas.

It would be easy to be overawed by the challenge or take the view that there’s not much the GAA can do about such a societal shift, but that doesn’t need to be the case.

There are many examples in this country of rural communities that were reinvigorated because a few people came together in the belief that through social enterprise they could be transformed from passive victims into active participants, and a partnership between the GAA and the Government could replicate this on a much grander scale.

Cooke believes billions of euros of dormant and live resources could be coordinated and made available to voluntary community groups if the GAA effectively became the Government’s Bluetooth speaker for rural renewal.

And in growing urban areas where social cohesion and a true sense of community can take some time to build, ensuring that the GAA and other sporting organisations have the green space they need to bring people together and a voice at the table when new urban developments are being planned also seems prudent.

In the true spirit of social partnership, the closer working relationship now signed up to by the GAA and Local Government in Ireland is hopefully a significant step towards improving all aspects of community life in Ireland for the good of everyone.

The report of the Association’s National Demographic Committee can be read in full and downloaded below.