RTÉ Investigates Girls in Green

Another new Irish sports scandal, and yet George Gibney is still walking around a free man.

He can deny all he likes but Collins has some questions to answer.

Absolutely.

Whilst I was watching the program last night, without intending to diminish any of what these girls had gone through, I couldn't help but think that the totally inappropriate behaviour is being viewed retrospectively by the standards in place today rather than the (lack of) standards in place at the time.

I would imagine if you cast a microscopic focus on many sports at the time (swimming has already been referenced) including GAA (and including other youth organisations) you would find multiple examples of hearsay, assault induced trauma and even evidence of totally inappropriate behaviour. I was just thinking also that unfortunately many of these were vulnerable young women rather than minors (so no child protection issues arising) and this also predated the sort of widespread and widely accepted misogony and dismissal of woman that was evidenced say in Taoiseach Albert Reynolds standing up in the Dail and saying "That's women for ya" (Not to mention CJH prepared to ride anything that took his fancy) or Kenny Everett getting irked by critical comments by Sinead O Connor on the Late Late show and responding with snide veiled suggestions that he could derail her career, if he so wanted (not to mention uncle Gaybo's often patronising and chauvinistic approach to the likes of Sinead and Annie Murphy amongst two memorable guests)

There are a multitude of now pension aged men (and probably some women) and plenty of deceased persons also who served in positions of responsibility in the 1970-90's and engaged in totally inappropriate behaviour towards some of their charges. And again, without trying to diminish those actions, these were the same time that coaches packed 10 people into their car without seatbelts to bring them to a match or an athletic meet for the want of the cost of a bus, or that a coach had no qualms whatsoever about picking a child up, or hugging them to acknowledge a victory, or rubbing away a pain, all actions that whilst relatively innocent then, are absolutely no go areas now when framed by today's standards, just saying.

Could be the next "Me too" movement. I'd say a lot of people looking over their shoulders waiting for the knock on the door.

Yep, I would agree with you that predatory behaviour was always thus and was often hiding in plain sight as there was neither the tools or the inclination to address it. From my teenage years in the eighties one heard plenty of stories from both girls and boys who knew of certain people who you made sure you were never caught alone with. The majority of young people quickly developed an intuition along with an informal communication network as to how to be careful but unfortunately the vulnerable or peripheral "different" kids frequently became the victims of these predators.

I remember in the wake of the Blackrock boys revelations I dipped into Bob Geldof's contemporanious autobiography 'Is that it?' to see if there was any hint or suggestion of inappropriate behaviour. As it happens, he does reference his interactions with one of the perpetrators but the truth is Geldof was even then probably too saavy and streetwise and too much of a mouth for anyone to try anything on with him (Mind you he also documents how he lost his virginity to an older neighbour, which was also disturbing predatory behaviour, albeit with Geldof as a seemingly willing participant). However he does reference a class mate of his who later committed suicide and one would wonder was there any connection there?

We could all indeed cite cases, albeit relatively minor of incidence in our youth where we felt uncomfortable or felt that the behaviour of adults was inappropriate towards us or others in our company. Thankfully, for the majority of us, we were able to extract ourselves from such situations, but I acknowledge that not everyone was so fortunate.

When I heard the part about the black plastic bags to lose weight and players being called fat. I immediately thought of Paul Gascoigne "Gazza". He had to do that to lose weight. Even back when he was a young player for Newcastle, Jack Charlton put pressure on him to lose weight. That was the done thing regardless of gender.

As for the inappropriate relationships between players and manager with an age gap etc, it always seems blurred among the different genders. Vera Pauw (Former women's Dutch international and Irish manager) married her coach Bert van Lingen with a 17 year age difference.

Plus these days there is the issue of same sex relationships between teammates, which can result in problems on and off the pitch particularly if they break down.

My sister played on a very successful inter county football team during the 90s, I would know nearly all her teammates.

I would also know the men involved on the coaching management side.

I never heard a word about anything like this. Keep in mind many women/girls played inter county at 15/16 but there would always have been a cohort of older women.

I think the set up here were most of the women were strangers to each other which would be different to a club/county set up left them a little exposed.

Also their social/employment status might have left them a little more vulnerable to being exploited.

For many years I trained in the same ground with the men's team, and there was always a divide separation. i.e. the gaa field wasn't a dating opportunity.

In college, with younger teams since I've stopped playing I've never heard of anything like this. Typically there would always be much older women involved in a coaching/selection role which also probably helped to keep predators at bay.

It has probably happened over the years with gaa but I never saw it

I think the abuse perpetrated by the Catholic Church in Ireland shows exactly how small towns and villages could house and in some cases protect abusers. Given the close association between the church and the GAA I won’t be surprised if stories emerge as a result of the fallout from the FAI case. Predators were involved in any activity that for them close to victims.

This is an old article but it’s well worth a read to see how communities and the great and the good worked to protect abusers - https://m.independent.ie/news/the-bishop-comiskey-controversy/26056900.html

During this era, the Irish Sports Councils standard response to anyone raising issues about any difficult topic was that they didnt want any "noise in the system" (their expression).

With this sort of attitude coming from the top, its not surprising that we've had a succession of scandals in Irish sport. Nobody, except those causing "noise in the system" feared intervention or cuts to funding for bad behaviour in their organisation.

The mention of FAS was all I needed.

The GAA has safe guarding in place and child protection procedures for a long time.

Soccer is no where still at that level from what I can see. I've kids with two different soccer clubs and they would regularly look for helpers from the sidelines which certainly doesn't happen with the GAA club.

we here don’t know what happened, if anything.

but as I see it the greatest obstacle to any criminal investigation leading to arrests and convictions would be the passage of time.

More than a quarter of a century has passed since the alleged incidents.

So judges and jury’s and defence teams would be VERY aware as to how unreliable recollections of details and events would be after that time. A competent defence lawyer could have a field day with any inconsistency or hesitancy or lack of being absolute in the evidence given.

Also who bears the financial burden ? The accusers the alleged perpetrators or the state ie. us citizens ? I’ve no idea but would like to know.

My problem is not people seeking justice, if they’ve been wronged, it’s waiting two and a half decades, over a quarter of a century to look for it……

if nothing to do with justice, yet you believe “at least one account will likely to be found criminal”..

Bit of a contradiction…

They have enabled themselves to be disadvantaged by doing nothing in the intervening years.