Can government take lessons from the GAA in finding solutions for its problems?

I suppose there is an opposite of the phrase ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

Towards the end of last week I began to turn it around in my head… ‘If something is broken it needs to be fixed.’

Over last weekend perhaps the most significant set of Gaelic football games in a number of years took place in Croke Park.

There is a general consensus among the GAA community, spectators, players, coaches and broadcasters, that the game of Gaelic football is broken.

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Can government take lessons from the GAA in finding solutions for its problems?

Oh every now and then we get served up a classic, like this year’s national league Final between Derry and the Dubs on Easter Sunday, when both teams attacked from the first whistle.

This year’s All Ireland final was a joyous occasion for Armagh and while there was tension and excitement in the game, it won’t break into the top 10 list of memorable finals.

In recent years far too many teams have had the attacking, direct forward play coached out of them and the result is a series of games where nothing really happens until the last 10 minutes or so of a game. Change is needed.

The remedy, and hats off to President Jarlath Burns for almost immediately instigating a review following his election, was to establish a Football Review Committee to come up with a set of suggested rule changes.

Some rules can be categorised as tinkering, but others are seismic.

You can go to the back pages of this paper for a detailed round up but suffice to say in the trial games there was more attacks, higher scores, more entertainment. The rule changes are most likely here to stay.

In taking forward these changes, which have produced a nation-wide healthy discussion, the GAA has shown leadership and intelligence.

The review committee was headed up by Jim Gavin, the hugely respected former Dublin manager who surrounded himself with some of the wisest most experienced managers and coaches in the game.

The theory seemed to be ‘well if these guys think we need to make these changes….’

So a problem was identified, an expert brought in to look at the problem, and make specific recommendations. Seems simple, right?

There are in fact too many organisations who prefer to trundle along even when problems have been identified or when a service is clearly not being delivered as intended or required.

Our own Executive’s Programme for Government (PfG) is currently out for consultation.

I joined an online consultation event last week hosted by CO3, the body made up of leaders in the third sector, and NICVA.

It was a useful exercise and there is still clearly a welcome for the fact that we actually have a Government in place and that the Executive parties have agreed the draft PfG.

There is an equal measure of frustration that the PfG, as it stands, is bereft of detail and of any accompanying financial plan.

Remember that the budget for 2024/ 25 was already published in April this year.

The proper order of these things is that a PfG should be signed off in tandem with the budget, so we can all see firstly what the Executive’s priorities are and secondly how they will be paid for.

In its first year of restoration, and by necessity, our Executive signed off on a budget when they had to, and then spent too long agreeing the draft programme.

But all is not lost. While we have a budget in place, we also have a relatively new UK Government and by the end of this month Rachel Reeves will have delivered a new spending review.

All the indications are that this will be a tight budget but we can also expect that devolved regions will get some measure of a funding uplift.

That will come just as the consultation period for the PfG will conclude and if the Executive acts with political urgency we can have a final programme in place which matches the new, increased, budget.

If this is not the case we are left with a programme high on ambition and priorities but with questions over its deliverability.

For example, who would disagree with the aim to reduce waiting lists, or build more social homes?

But without the required funding those commitments may actually give false hope to citizens here which would be a let-down.

We know what problems beset society here, we will soon know what means we have to address them.

Hopefully that leads to a realistic plan to address the problem, just like we saw being rolled out in Croke Park over the weekend.