Galway GAA report puts focus on cash-handling ‘deficiencies’
A hard-hitting official report has questioned the manner in which gate receipts are collected at many GAA venues in Galway, pointing out that “there is no systematic reconciliation between monies collected at individual gates/ matches and the corresponding lodgement to the Galway GAA bank account”.
The report, commissioned by County Committee Chairman Pat Kearney, also claimed that, in one instance, the gate receipts collected from a GAA fixture were not lodged until three months after the event.
The report said this highlighted that there were “serious deficiencies in our [Galway GAA’s] cash handling procedures”.
Set up to investigate the controversial resignation of the Duggan Park (Ballinasloe) Development GAA Committee earlier this year, the report has also called into question not only Galway GAA’s governance in relation to the county ground but also its day-to-day running of the Association’s operations locally.
Indeed, the review indicated there was a lack of transparency in collecting monies in some grounds and in the instance highlighted above outlined that the lodgement was only marked “absent” after “a complete set of gate vouchers was returned for Duggan Park” by the Committee.
The report says: “We understand that there is only one other non-county ground and one committee that returns gate vouchers in a similar fashion. Even with the Duggan Park vouchers examined, additional monies were unexplained.
“There is currently no transparent systematic method of ensuring all monies collected have been lodged as gate vouchers are never reconciled with lodgements on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. This is a fundamental control measure as outlined in the published GAA Governance code.”
Commissioned by County Committee Chairman Pat Kearney – and understood to have been signed off by the County Management Committee – the report is the work of three long-serving members of Galway GAA, namely Kenneth Fox, Seamus Finnerty and Pat Monaghan.
For the rest of this story, see this week’s Connacht Tribune.