46 Comments

• ciaradexy | Aug 22, 2012, 06:52 PM EDT

  IrelandNorth, a blow to soft tissue causes cancer?? Get a grip! No it doesnt! The rugby team dont wear orange but so what? WHy are YOU making a big deal out of it? You dont live here or pay tax here so it doesnt affect you.

• IrelandNorth | Aug 17, 2012, 06:59 AM EDT

  PS The ethics and morality of point scoring around landing blows upon the body of an opponent, (with maximum points for concussing them), does need addressing. Allowing allegedly voluntary behaviour in a squared-circle that would constitute a criminal offence if taking place outside is highly questionable. Wearing headgear is ineffective, since the jarring and jolting of the jelly like grey matter of the brain against the hardboned coruscations of the inner skull occurs. And blows to soft tissue areas like mammary glands may cause breast cancer in later life. What use would Olympic medals be then?

• IrelandNorth | Aug 17, 2012, 06:49 AM EDT

  Reflecting new political dispensations, there was only Team Ireland and Team GB. There was no Team UK or NI! Olympians for Team Ireland were from all 32 counties, being the generic brand. Team GB quite obviously used the Commonwealth Games as an Olympic Games qualifier for Team GB. Ergo, Team GB was really Team CON (Commonwealth of Nations) in constitutional drag, since most of GB's Olympians were mercenary Afro-Caribbeans frokm the colonies, (like many of her armed forces!). The further one casts ones nationalistic net, the more fish can be caught. NB A loan to a lender is far more remunerative than a bottomless pit of subventionism to dysfuntional dependencies. Sadly, comicstip £oylai$t$ using lowercase characters when referring to Ireland proper betray their inate parochial meanspiritedness.

• IrelandNorth | Aug 17, 2012, 06:19 AM EDT

  Anyone know why the colour orange was seemingly downplayed in the Team Ireland sports uniform? Am I right in intuiting that its dumming down is a further concession to a Ulster unionism/loyalism shopping list to make an agreed Ireland more negotiable. Like the occasional bout of Benny bashing and Royal inviting in exchange for macroeconomic loans at preferential rates of interest by investors in Ireland Incorporarted (IreInc). After all, is not debt entrapment is the new imperialism. What sayest thou, senor Gringo?

• shuvonn | Aug 17, 2012, 05:37 AM EDT

  You again miss the point about several issues, it does not matter WHERE the money comes from for sports(government or private monies ) Ireland is not in the same league for corporate sponsorship as the US would be. As for national pride watching the NBC coverage is enough to make one ill so rarely that any other country is mentioned let alone highlighted and its a joke for you to even suggest that the entire US team is not being pressured to win win win or it's not a source of national pride, that's supposedly fine for the US but not Ireland? Who paid for the building of those olympic training facilities? Obviously every tax payer has a say but we got a lot more value out of the money it cost to train these athletes than the bailout for the banks that now every Irish person is paying back for.

• stonethrower | Aug 16, 2012, 06:37 PM EDT

  While i agree with "The Yank" that a tax-payer has the right to know & question where & how the money is spent,i think he is very naive with an arguement that is petty & begrudging.I suggested yesterday he educate about waste of tax payer money,rather than the nurturing investment in our athletes,where at least it gives a chance of a result.To review some examples of waste,Waterford T.D Martin Cullen provided us with the 52 million Euro dud e-voting machines,our ministerial fleet up to 2010 (Luxury Merc's ,BMW's ,Lexus',etc)was operated at a cost to the tax-payer of 6.5 million per annum in driver salaries ,running expenses & maintenance cost,to all our regret the tip of the ice-berg.So when you downgrade the accomplishment of a driven world class athlete for getting a mere 40,000 a year for completing the job she was paid (not all that much in ratio to the effort & dedication required) to do it sounds empty , half-baked and poorly researched.

• TheYank | Aug 16, 2012, 09:53 AM EDT

  That the UK is as foolish - moreso since they're in the hole for $20bn for hosting the Olympics - doesn't answer why we taxpayers should care enough to pay? I don't know if the Austrian state pays their athletes or not.
  
  The Olympics are like a giant con game, convincing us that national pride is on the line and we need to pay people to win gold medals for us as a nation. Meanwhile they're sitting on a goldmine that they don't have to share because taxpayers are picking up the tab for them.

• kinvara7 | Aug 16, 2012, 09:44 AM EDT

  You ask a question which seeks to contrast a GAA player and an Olympic athlete. Well on the face of it it’s a fine question. However, the GAA is self-contained, so to speak. The rules are applied across the board and I have tremendous admiration for inter-county players, as I’m sure you do. In the context of world athletics, however, things are different. I have already given you details of the amount of money the UK has spent and plans on spending ahead of Rio. It is all well and good to say how much nicer it would be if we didn’t have to support them, but we would certainly reduce our chances of securing medals. As I have pointed out, Austria failed to secure a single medal at the Olympics and they are not very happy about it.

• kinvara7 | Aug 16, 2012, 09:18 AM EDT

  TheYank: Your article said: “Katie Taylor…has received almost €300,000 ($370,000) in government funding (aka our money) since 2005… And at least she won a medal” Furthermore, prior to this, and despite many of your comments, you didn’t disagree with the headline on your article. You say that: “to me the picture looks exactly the same no matter how many medals she won”, well, maybe to you, however most people would look at all of her achievements since 2005 and take them into account –the picture would look different to most people then.

• TheYank | Aug 16, 2012, 08:46 AM EDT

  kinvara7
  
  I don't think I said anywhere in the article that "Katie’s Gold medal cost the Taxpayer close to $400,000." The headline says that, but I didn't write that.
  
  To me the picture looks exactly the same no matter how many medals she won.
  
  My point is - and it's not just Taylor but the entire Sports Council payroll - why should taxpayers pay athletes a salary? (And why should we even have a taxpayer funded Sports Council?)
  
  Even if Katie Taylor had won 5 Olympic golds what public service is that? She won her gold medal in a sporting event that is swimming in sponsorship & television rights money. Let them pay.

• TheYank | Aug 16, 2012, 08:37 AM EDT

  shuvonn,
  
  I have to amend what I wrote below. I wrote:
  
  The fact that we were bailed out with loans at lower rates of interest than were available from the market means there was some measure of generosity from those countries that lent the money.
  
  I want to add that whatever about the generosity of those bodies that bailed out Ireland, there was far more self-interest involved in that decision than any measure of generosity. That includes the UK, the EU (Germany, France, etc), the IMF (mostly America).

• kinvara7 | Aug 16, 2012, 08:24 AM EDT

  @TheYank: You say that Katie’s Gold medal cost the Taxpayer close to $400,000 and you state in your article that you get this figure by adding up the funding she has received since 2005. However, since 2005 how many world championships etc., has Katie Taylor won? She has won four World Amateur Championships: 2006, 08, 10, and 12; five European Amateur Championships: 05, 06, 07, 09, 11; four European Amateur Championships: 08, 09, 10, and 11. In short, to claim that the funding she has received since 2005 has only resulted in 1 Gold medal is incorrect. When you take her other achievements into account the picture begins to look very different.

• TheYank | Aug 16, 2012, 07:40 AM EDT

  Here's a question I have (& I don't know the answer):
  
  Do those who play GAA get €40K per year from the government? They certainly bring pride to their towns & counties across the country and there's a definite national pride in the GAA. If they're not paid, why not? The interest in Gaelic Football & Hurling is far greater than it is in clay pigeon shooting, sailing, canoeing and even boxing. Why would Henry Shefflin not be entitled to the same money as Katie Taylor or Olive Loughnane?

• TheYank | Aug 16, 2012, 07:35 AM EDT

  Seanmor,
  
  Excellent question. I would be pretty certain that Delaney not only got no money from the government for competing and/or winning gold but that he was out of pocket for his travel expenses to Australia. I'd like to know, though.

• TheYank | Aug 16, 2012, 07:33 AM EDT

  shuvonn,
  
  Ireland's entire "bailout" was a loan of €67.5bn split between the EU, the IMF and 3 countries: the UK, Denmark & Sweden.
  
  You say "it has been established that Ireland did not need to be bailed out at all," but I don't understand what you mean by that. The bailout became necessary when our cost of borrowing on the capital markets was so high that we had no choice but to seek help. The fact that we were bailed out with loans at lower rates of interest than were available from the market means there was some measure of generosity from those countries that lent the money.
  
  If you think that we could have avoided the bailout by letting the banks go to the wall, that's definitely an argument. I think we would still have needed a bailout or faced a rapid contraction in the standard of living, although possibly with a better path back to prosperity.

• TheYank | Aug 16, 2012, 07:22 AM EDT

  Éamonn,
  
  On the one hand, I generally don't let those comments phase me. On the other, such vitriol does turn people off commenting. I know I sometimes just can't be bothered.
  
  I would have thought that commenting on how a government spends the money it raises through taxes was always up for discussion and that I as a tax-payer - I clearly stated above that I live in Bray - am fully entitled to express my view.

• TheYank | Aug 16, 2012, 07:15 AM EDT

  shuvonn,
  
  You make some good points. I'm sure NBC would die if Americans won no medals. But, as far as I can make out, there is no government money for Olympic athletes. There was a suggestion recently that those who win medals and the accompanying prize-money should have that income exempted from federal taxes, but that's not a law yet.
  
  American athletes are paid, but by the American Olympic Committee, which (I'm guessing) gets its money from corporate sponsorship, maybe a cut from the IOC of their NBC billions.
  
  I have no problem with Ireland's athletes being paid, but I don't think they should be paid with taxpayers' money. I don't think any taxpayers in any country should pay athletes to compete in the Olympic games.

• shuvonn | Aug 16, 2012, 06:05 AM EDT

  Yank, glad to hear YOU can handle an Irish medal free olympics, but IF you have ever watched an NBC broadcast, you would know, the US could NEVER handle a US medal free olympics, why expect something of Ireland that you would not expect of the US? Have you the figures handy for what these US olympic athletes were paid by chance?

• EamonnDublin | Aug 16, 2012, 05:59 AM EDT

  Posting on here is a bit of an eye-opener. I fail to understand how even the most logically considered opinions are met with insults. Quite vicious insults, racist ("Yank - STFU"), insulting others' intelligence ("stupid") and even worse. Come to think of it, those posters are not actually insulting their intended targets; they are in fact abusing themselves by showing their lack of basic courtesy, decency and plain "old fashioned" manners. Very sad. I await you abuse. Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.

• shuvonn | Aug 16, 2012, 05:53 AM EDT

  Johnnymac claims it has not cost the Irish Tax payer one penny, and lies that Ireland was bailed out by the British government, when that never was the case, GB loaned Ireland money and at a higher rate, but I can tell you do not care too much for the truth when it flies in the face of your bias. GB never properly joined the EU (stayed out of the euro) and still wanted to boss them all around, it was Germany and the EU that bailed Ireland out and in fact it has been established that Ireland did not need to be bailed out at all. I suppose all them years of having a colony will not be let go easily. You neglect to mention the land taken by force by your ancestors, the gerrymandering and manipulation that went on to keep the industrialized part of Ireland and now YOU want to piss and moan? Get real, and get over it.

• antoman | Aug 16, 2012, 02:53 AM EDT

  Why is a Yank in Ireland and does he wear the hat indoors?

• Seanmor | Aug 16, 2012, 01:58 AM EDT

  How much money did Ronnie Delaney get from the government of the Irish state when he won a Gold Medal at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne?

• IrishmanOz | Aug 16, 2012, 12:55 AM EDT

  400,000 euro for Katie's gold medal... what a bargain.! Australia's gold medals cost $34 million each. Do your research you stupid yank, I'm sure the Facist State of America's medals cost even more!

• stonethrower | Aug 15, 2012, 09:55 PM EDT

  Take a look at those sums of money we invested in athletes,& then look up the salaries of our politicans.Which has yielded the better results.No contest there.At least some of our athletes have delivered a boost & a feelgood factor to the country.My advice to you is to read & educate yourself on the real bludgers on Irelands tax money,Shane Ross & Nick Webb's "Wasters" & Fintan O'Toole's "Ship of Fools" are highly recommended eyeopeners to misuse on a grand scale of tax-payer money with no tangible benefit to our citizenry whatsoever,even the guy who came 46th in clay pidgeon shooting looks like value for money compared to the catalogue of public waste recorded in those books.so enjoy the moment,the next Olympics is 4 years away.

• Ratslayer | Aug 15, 2012, 08:06 PM EDT

  Hey plastic paddy, STFU and mind your business. Idiot.

• kinvara7 | Aug 15, 2012, 06:44 PM EDT

  @Johnnymac12: Team Ireland represented the whole island of Ireland. Team Ireland had 14 athletes from the North; Team GB (note: it is not Team UK) had 6 athletes from the North; 6 athletes out of 557! How can you say that Team Ireland didn’t represent ‘the six counties in Northern Ireland’ when it had far more athletes from there than Team GB? With respect, I think you and those like you need to start thinking about these issues. The Republic of Ireland has not been declared bankrupt, Johnnymac12, although it is heavily indebted –as is the UK. Furthermore, I feel I should point out to you that in 1976 the UK government was forced to apply to the IMF for a bailout rescue package (I believe it was the largest-ever call on IMF resources up to that point). So the UK has experienced this sort of thing in the past. Hopefully, both the UK and the Republic will recover quickly.

• TheYank | Aug 15, 2012, 06:11 PM EDT

  Suivness10,
  
  Girls wrestling? I don't know. I've never seen it, but the point of wrestling is a lot less destructive than boxing I can't imagine I'd have any problem with it. Girls wrestling boys? Emmmm.

• TheYank | Aug 15, 2012, 06:07 PM EDT

  kinvara7,
  
  Sorry, I didn't address your other question. No, I didn't see one minute of any Katie Taylor bouts. However I couldn't have if I'd wanted to because American tv pretty much ignored the boxing - men's too - and as I was in America for the nearly entire Olympics I couldn't watch Katie's fights.
  
  However, one last time, I really see nothing appealing about watching two young women trying to punch each other in the head. I don't like boxing much anyway so I certainly have no intention of becoming a fan of women's boxing now.
  
  branagh's comment below only adds to the argument against women's boxing.

• TheYank | Aug 15, 2012, 06:03 PM EDT

  kinvara7,
  
  I'm not going to rehash the last argument. I didn't intend to return to Katie or the Olympics until I saw Fergus Finlay's column in the Examiner in which he argued for MORE funding for elite athletes and then told his readers where to find the information I used above. I never knew any of that until I read his article yesterday.
  
  Again, it's not just Katie Taylor. As I said above at least she delivered. Look at the list of those we funded who did poorly. Is that money well spent?
  
  However, you can't say the money for Katie Taylor was worth it but not the money for the clay pigeon shooter or the track athletes. The whole practice stinks.
  
  What about that athlete the government doesn't fund? What if he or she might have been a medal contender, but couldn't compete with the athlete who gets €40K per year? Why should I believe the government does a good job of picking winners & losers? Let those who really want it figure it out. Let those who are the cream of the crop convince sponsors to pay them or convince their sporting organizations to pay them with money they get from sponsorship or TV deals.
  
  It makes no more sense to fund an Irish canoeist than it does to fund a professional Irish soccer player. Yet the government doesn't give money to those people. Why not? Because their sports earn money and pay salaries that make sense to them as businesses/going concerns. Why should the government be funding these sports that are not sustainable as going concerns? It's no different than funding a whole bunch of bookstores even when people don't want to buy books.

• TheYank | Aug 15, 2012, 05:55 PM EDT

  Canadian,
  
  That's how it should be done. There's no excuse for governments taxing citizens in order to pay athletes a salary.
  
  If the sport cannot sustain professional athletes then let them remain amateur.

• branagh | Aug 15, 2012, 05:43 PM EDT

  Boxing as a sport is becoming nearly extinct in the most developed countries. Every medical academy in the developed world (eg,GB,USA,Australia,Canada..) have stated that boxing carries the special hazard of delayed brain damage. Every academy of neurologists and neurosurgeons likewise. Note i am not referring to ACUTE injuries or the 200 actual fatalities in the ring since 1980. I'm pretty shocked that this risky business is State-funded and especially worried that KTs performance will lure young schoolgirls (boys as well!) into this nasty sport.

• Towngate | Aug 15, 2012, 05:23 PM EDT

  Good for her and father Peter,and all that ... but I am really shocked about the level of financial support they get from the Government. When you take that sum into account and that of her three major Commercial sponsors,then consider the run-down shed she trains in, it begs the question : WHO is handling her money and where is it all going....?!

• WoundedKnee | Aug 15, 2012, 04:38 PM EDT

  There's no doubt that the Irish track and field people are a complete waste of space. Some of them are still crossing the finishing line. Still, when you think how much Ireland wastes on paying welfare to foreign migrants and their children, real or imaginary, I can't begrudge money spent on Irish men and women.

• Suivness10 | Aug 15, 2012, 03:09 PM EDT

  I don't believe it. Doe anybody know how much money it takes to be a top level athlete? Lots, and it basically doesn't matter what the sport. And it doesn't matter how talented the athlete is. If he/she doesn't get funding from family or otherwise they will be hanging by their fingernails, if at all. Unless, of course, you're Chinese and the govt. will happily foot the bill, same was for the Soviet Union. And we wonder why they excel. If you get paid to work out and hone your sport every day, it's a lot easier to go for the gold. Ask any American sports star and they will tell you how very much it cost them to get where they are. If the Irish govt. is willing to help their athletes, more power to them. And BTW The Yank, are you also against women's wrestling? Then I have to brag: this year my daughter was Captain of the *boys* (you got it) wrestling team at school!

• johnnymac12 | Aug 15, 2012, 02:20 PM EDT

  kinvara7, NO WAY Team Ireland did not represent the whole of ireland. They were NEVER representing the six counties in Northern Ireland. They were NEVER representing me. Team GB was for the people of Northern Ireland as it is a part of U.K. Team ireland was represented by 14 persons from Northern Ireland only because of the political and religious differences. They don't like Northern Ireland but they like the Queens pound when it comes to paying for their training facilities in that part of the island. As you may well have noticed U.K. is still solvent and has never been declared bankrupt unlike the republic.

• kinvara7 | Aug 15, 2012, 02:01 PM EDT

  @ johnnymac12: You say that the Olympics ‘hasn't cost the irish taxpayer one penny’[sic], because it has been ‘bailed’ out. Well, Johnny, that isn’t correct because the ‘bailout’ is a loan which must be paid back with interest. The UK has a national debt of over 1Trillion (and that doesn’t include the money pumped into British banks). The UK is still borrowing billions; now, if the Olympics was paid for with borrowed money, does that mean it didn’t cost the British taxpayer anything? The last thing that I would like to point out to you is this: Team Ireland represented the entire island of Ireland and I believe that out of 66 athletes, 14 came from Northern Ireland; by comparison, I believe that out of the 557 athletes that represented Team GB, 6 came from Northern Ireland. So johnnymac12, if you are from the north, ‘my’ Olympic team was representing you too!

• Maggie47 | Aug 15, 2012, 01:44 PM EDT

  Yank, You are not on the dole over there are you?

• kinvara7 | Aug 15, 2012, 01:41 PM EDT

  According to the Guardian, an Olympic medal won by Team GB at the London 2012 Games cost an average of £4.5 million. Furthermore, Prime Minister Cameron has announced that an extra £80 million of exchequer funding will be given to UK Sport to prepare team GB ahead of the Rio games. Austria sent a larger team to the London games than Ireland and didn’t win a single medal. Ireland did better than countries like Argentina and India and came in 41st place out of over 200 competing countries. I believe Ireland should support top athletes, just as we should support scientific research and culture.

• kinvara7 | Aug 15, 2012, 01:40 PM EDT

  @TheYank: After the article you wrote previously on Katie Taylor, I predicted that you would try and return and take the gloss off of her success in some way. I hoped that after discussing with you the flaws in that article that you might surprise me and watch one of her bouts (perhaps you did?) I hoped that having watched athletes like Katie Taylor and Nicola Adams, you would write an informed article about women’s boxing and actually show some real respect, rather than platitudes about how you ‘respect her as an athlete’ …although not enough to watch her compete; some respect.

• fiddlinvet | Aug 15, 2012, 01:17 PM EDT

  So what? That is nothing compared to having to pay out millions for the victims of the pedophile clergy....which belongs to the richest company in the world (the Roman Catholic Church).

• johnnymac12 | Aug 15, 2012, 01:15 PM EDT

  It hasn't cost the irish taxpayer one penny. The bankrupt republic, bailed out by the British government again has paid for your olympic team to participate in London.

• Canadian | Aug 15, 2012, 01:12 PM EDT

  A far cry from Canada where the athletes get almost no funding and have to rely on donations from businesses. But Government funding is the way to go IF you want medals.

• peadarom | Aug 15, 2012, 12:04 PM EDT

  I think it the best money that Irish Government was spend in a long time

• citizen69 | Aug 15, 2012, 11:34 AM EDT

  It's a similar story in most places. The UK spent a few hundred million on funding Team GB for the Olympics but the amount of pride they have collectively given the nation was deemed worth it, although funding for under-performing athletes and teams have been cut for the next Olympics.

• Maggie47 | Aug 15, 2012, 11:18 AM EDT

  How much did it cost to protect the queen?

• Silling | Aug 15, 2012, 10:14 AM EDT

  It was money well spent, thank you Irish tax payers, keep it up.