'Were not for a Rory Grugan goal, Westmeath had Armagh beaten' - GAA President

GAA President Jarlath Burns urged Westmeath to believe they can compete with the top counties when he spoke at the launch of the new main sponsors, teg, in their Mullingar offices last Thursday.

He referenced the Sam Maguire Cup game against Armagh two years ago, won by 1-13 to 1-12 by his native county, who went on to win the All-Ireland title a year later.

“Only two years ago in the Athletic Grounds, if it were not for a Rory Grugan goal, Westmeath had Armagh beaten. You are so close. You have the players, you have the ethos and you have the network around the county to support success, and I can tell you, nobody would be more pleased to see it than myself,” he remarked.

He was full of praise for teg and Directors Tommy Kelly and John Hunt for their support of GAA in the county.

“This is not sponsorship. Sponsorship is a transaction where you give something and you get something back. We see that all the time nationally in Croke Park when we're dealing with our national sponsorship. It’s a transaction where they have an expectation of the brand, that it's going to have so much exposure. It doesn't matter whether teg is on the jerseys or Cusack Park, it's not going to give one extra penny into the coffers of teg.

“I'm sure when you go and you talk to your accountants, they're saying, “Why are you handing this money over to the GAA?” You do it because you understand that the main reason why we are here on this earth is to - three words - improve people's lives. That it’s in giving that you receive.

“This is a charitable donation, and for me as president of this association, it’s so affirming that a big company like this believes in the association so much that you would give money to the GAA and you're not brand-greedy either, like some sponsorship deals are with some counties. You're just happy to give the money, and that money - I know that Frank (Mescall, chairman) talked about money - is to go to the county team.

I know that at no stage will you, Patrick (Doherty, head of operations), get a knock at his door and say, ‘Show me an invoice that’s there for what we're spending our money on,’ because you have trust in what and how Westmeath spend your money because you've already invested heavily in the county.”

Mr Burns said teg, as a company, is making a major impact on the lives of people in Mullingar. Having toured the factory and viewed some of the engineering at first hand, he was clearly impressed.

“I briefly want to talk about your apprenticeships, and I've seen this as an educator. It can become increasingly difficult for young people to leave home and go and live in Dublin or Belfast to become a student, and there is a great soft landing and scaffolding for young people if they leave and do an apprenticeship in a place like this, because you earn while you learn. There's an awful lot of people who are very put off by the prospect of having to spend four years in university, and they come out of there with a degree but with no skills. And we talk about the six 21st-century skills: flexibility, leadership, initiative, productivity, social skills, and the most important of all is information literacy: that's making sense of this very complex world around us and being able to make proper decisions,” he noted.

“You showed me a skin that Boeing has asked you to develop to impact on the wifi antennae on Boeing 747s. They were losing four percent of their fuel through these antennae.

“You have managed through the apprenticeships - children from this town - using all of those 21st-century skills: leadership, initiative, productivity, social skills, all of those that you learn here… they make you a better person, improve the lives of people, and you are now exporting to Boeing the solution that they asked for.

“Children from this town going through the process of this factory here and improving the lives of people. That's what it's all about. Never, ever take that for granted - the business that you are in and the impact that you are making on this town - because the person who is working down there on a Monday, their wife can go to the local beautician on a Tuesday, they can go to the butcher’s and they can go to the local shop, and they can buy their clothes on the main street here in Mullingar, and all of that is keeping money in this town. If you want to know an example of the direct opposite of that - of industry and the lens through which we view the world being so skewed as it takes away from improving the lives of people - if you look at life through the prism of Gross Domestic Product, GDP, it's very easy to do that when you're in the corporate world. You don't do it; you do it through improving the lives of people.”

He drew reference to how former US President Barack Obama had impacted positively on people’s lives when in power.

“Barack Obama got into government in America. He said that there were three words. He was very focused on these three words - improving the lives of people. “That's why I'm here.” So, what are the things that people need to survive? They need good health, they need clean water and they need clean air. Never take that for granted because industry is biggest things that can impact those things.

“So the first thing was he made an affordable health policy which became Obamacare. The second thing was to try and stop factories from polluting the air; he came up with the Clean Protection Power Act which regulated very heavily the amount of emissions that were going into the air. And the third thing he did was the Stream Protection Plan of 2016, and that was to regulate water pollution. Now, as you know, factories and industry and corporate and all of those big things don't like regulation, so when Donald Trump got in in 2017, and he was heavily lobbied and paid for by these companies, he repealed all three.

They reckon that that's costing 80,000 lives in America every year for the next 10 years through respiratory illnesses. The GDP will rise, but it's not improving the lives of people.”

On behalf of the GAA, he thanked teg for their great support and, comparing it to his own county’s main sponsor, he said he hopes it has a successful outcome.

“Tommy and John and all of the rest of your workers who are here, to improve the lives of people: you're providing employment, you're providing dignity, you're giving people a purpose and you're funding Westmeath GAA with our values such as community, our amateur status, respect, player welfare, inclusion - we are where we all belong - and, of course, teamwork and volunteers,” he remarked.

“You believe in us and we believe in you, and that's why I am here tonight to say to you, on behalf of not only Westmeath GAA but of the GAA around the country, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. We do not take it for granted. And I know that you talked about the steps of the Hogan Stand - nothing in this world would give me greater pleasure later on next year than to present a cup to Westmeath and to see you and to shake your hands. I know that's not why you're doing it, but wouldn’t it be a wonderful result? Because whenever Patrick McCann from Simply Fruit began investing in Armagh 10 years ago for the same reason - he does all his business in England - little did he know what would end up for him.”