Patrick Murphy: Why I’m ashamed to be a member of the GAA
I NEVER thought I would write this sentence, but I am ashamed to be a member of the GAA.In the mouth of Christmas, Croke Park decided that the organisation should retain its links with Allianz, a German multinational finance company which sponsors the GAA’s national leagues. Earlier this year, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in occupied Palestine, Francesca Albanese, identified Allianz as among the global corporations which she said should be held accountable for “profiting from genocide in Gaza”. She reported that through its subsidiary asset management firm Pimco, Allianz was a significant buyer of shares and bonds associated with the Israeli government.The Irish Central Bank blocked approval for such bonds in September, because 70,000 Palestinians, including 20,000 children, have been killed by that government.
The GAA’s decision was based on a report from what it called its ethics and integrity committee, specially created in September to examine the issue. Ethics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the principles of morality which guide behaviour. It has various sub-divisions, but it basically offers a framework for decision-making between right and wrong. Integrity is the commitment to adhere to those principles. For 10 years I served as chair of a research ethics committee in the Department of Health. Its remit was to determine if proposals to carry out medical research were ethical, including clinical trials for new drugs. So I have some understanding of how an ethics committee operates. With that knowledge and experience, I cannot find any ethical criteria on which the GAA’s committee based its recommendations, as summarised in a press statement. The report is financial in nature, rather than ethical. It claims that the GAA is ethically and legally bound to honour its contract with Allianz.No: it is ethically bound not to honour a contract with Allianz, because it has financial links to a government led by a man whom Ireland would arrest for war crimes. Yes, breaking the contract “could expose” the GAA to legal action, but would Allianz want details of its links with Israel exposed in court?The committee claims that breaking the contract could damage the GAA’s reputation. That reputation is already damaged, because of its Allianz links. For example, Francesca Albanese posted on X last weekend: “GAA, Irish largest sporting org. (once part of the resistance to British occupation) decided to maintain ties with Allianz, despite the latter’s dealings with Apartheid Israel. Placing profits above rights.”Remarkably, the committee claimed that Allianz’s Irish branch was merely a “sibling or cousin company” of global Allianz and therefore not connected with the Israeli government.Would the GAA now like to publish details of the Allianz corporation’s systems, structures and accountability network to support that claim? Failure to do so would be unethical. Perhaps the most astonishing conclusion is that breaking the Allianz contract would make it “impossible to secure an alternative insurer that would not have similar links”.Presumably they mean similar to Allianz’s links to Israel. However, the report denies such links exist, thereby defying logic as well as ethics. These findings are effectively those of an accountancy committee. An ethics committee would have weighed financial implications against the moral considerations identified in the UN report. The report summary does not even mention Gaza.GAA President Jarlath Burns Picture: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile GAA President Jarlath Burns defended the report. Replying to the point that almost 800 prominent GAA figures have signed an open letter asking the organisation to end its relationship with Allianz, he said, “800 might seem a lot. In the vast scheme of things, it’s 0.13% of our membership.” He may not know that in 1916, the 1,500 people who took part in the Easter Rising represented about 0.049% of the population at that time. They are the ones we honour today, not the British who described them as an unrepresentative minority.In any case, nine counties, including the President’s own county, Armagh, oppose Allianz’s involvement in GAA sponsorship. Finally, some might argue that opposing Allianz’s involvement in the GAA is part of some wider antisemitic campaign.However, in May 1999, the World Jewish Congress won its case against several companies which had previously refused to pay out on insurance policies of Holocaust victims.Allianz was among those sued because “it insured a number of concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Dachau”. You see, ethics is not a matter of political opinion. It is a matter of morality.That morality has been sidelined by the Croke Park hierarchy – and that’s why I am ashamed to be a member of the GAA.If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article and would like to submit a Letter to the Editor to be considered for publication, please click hereLetters to the Editor are invited on any subject. They should be authenticated with a full name, address and a daytime telephone number. Pen names are not allowed.
