Impact of teacher cutbacks on GAA worse than first feared

Martin Breheny

JUDGING by the reaction of the teaching fraternity to my suggestion last week that cutbacks in their profession could have serious repercussions for the GAA through reduced out-of-hours coaching and games management, it's a bigger problem than I realised.

Many teachers made it clear that they were either no longer giving as much time to training pupils after school or were about to cut back (even more might be heading in that direction after today's Budget).

Because I centred the piece on the primary school teachers, it was pointed out that the same level of sporting generosity was also forthcoming at second and third level.

Quite true, but for how much longer? That's the big question.