JP McManus to donate 1 million to each county. Greatest gesture in the GAA ever? What's your take?

evolvingtipperary101

Businessman JP McManus is to donate €1 million to Gaelic games in every county in Ireland.

The money is to be used equally in support of men's football, women's football, hurling and camogie.

The donation is expected to arrive to each county in the coming days.

Sources close to McManus have refused to comment on the story but Limerick GAA have already welcomed receipt of €1m.

brokenbad

Great news for GAA in all counties - as long as the money is invested appropriately, in the right manner and there is governance and transparency regarding same.

kirk.

Irelands answer to Robin Hood

TheRiverman

JP is one of our greatest ever Irishmen. Hopefully all counties outside Limerick appreciate and spend it properly for what it is intended for. Limerick already have and will continue to benefit greatly from his wonderful generosity.

Quitelife

32 million just like that, obviously the man is loaded but this is an incredible act of generosity and will make huge differences to GAA clubs all over Ireland .

Don’t see some of the other billionaires like Larry Goodman , John Magner giving anything to anyone , Denis O Brien give plenty to the FAI to be fair but nothing of this level .

Tommysocks11

Ha ha Larry Goodman too busy ripping off the poor farmers in this country, miserable hungry little man, well done jp, fair generous gesture out of you, u put the rest of them to shame

JVince

Great gesture and he will probably not make comment. There are many charities that receive equally substantial contributions from him on condition of anonymity.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121494529#Comment_121494529

The Magnier Family have been extremely generous to people in their locality. You just have to look at Fethard Town Park to see what they contribute.

Mantis Toboggan

Got to love those Swiss taxes, nice gesture all the same, plenty of people don't pay a cent in tax but still give nothing back.

waterwelly

Won't be long now until the "but he's a tax dodger living in Switzerland" brigade arrive on.

Mantis Toboggan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121494578#Comment_121494578

But he does dodge paying tax by living in Switzerland, don't think we need a brigade to figure that one out!

Glenomra

The greatest living Irish person imo. Acknowledging the work the GAA does in local communities is the principal point imo. Well done JP.

Quitelife

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121494553#Comment_121494553

i was informed by a local in the past - sports club asked for donations in the past and got nothing but maybe they were wrong .

larry Goodman definitely wouldn’t give anything , he doesn’t want to pay the farmers or the taxman and the conditions in his meat factories misfortunes from Brazil , Latvia etc endure for minimal wage is a utter disgrace .

NIMAN

Is there any tax involved in this? Or will each board get it tax free?

ucd.1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121494685#Comment_121494685

Tax free.

Gusser09

It's a great gesture. Some will find a reason to criticise or knock him but this will be massive in terms of development. Especially for the smaller counties.

Well done JP. He hasn't forgotten his roots.

blackbox

I'm with the tax dodger brigade.

I'd far prefer to see him paying taxes like a normal citizen rather than being a tax exile.

We'd all love to pick and choose where our tax money is spent but it's a much fairer system where we democratically elect a government to distribute our taxes.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121494640#Comment_121494640

I'm afraid they were quite wrong. The rugby was always using land belong to Coolmore until the new town park provided them with a top-of-the-range syntehtic pitch to use in conjunction with the GAA club.

I know people on committees in the area and they have mentioned that Coolmore will not 100% fund a project in the locality, if they did, the clubs would have everything without having to put in any work. They have no problem 70/80% fund a project if the receiving party can come up with the balance.

Quitelife

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121494720#Comment_121494720

I don’t like tax evasion but he’s probably giving the same money back into the Irish system albeit to stuff he’s interested in be that many charities in the mid west and indeed all over ireland and he obviously has a huge interest in GAA and horse racing luckily enough for those sports . The Irish government squander so much money he’s probably doing a better job .

Compare that to Larry Scrooge pay no one Goodman and his Luxembourg tax evasion model .

thinkabouit

Fair play to him, no doubt it’s badly needed in some countys.

Tax dodger? Give it a rest, we would all do the same because they get plenty of it anyway & would only waste it on nothing!

blackbox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121494763#Comment_121494763

I can't argue against the government wasting money, but at least they are the people we have elected. How much does JP McManus waste?

How much of this money going to the GAA will be wasted?

NJSC1980

Fair play to him. People moan about his tax status but he does a lot more good with his money for this country than our poxy government would ever do with it.

niallpatrick

Yep fair play and not many would make the same donation or any donation, I'd love to have that kind of wealth (who wouldn't?) and in these times of austerity you've got miserable sods as CEO's and employers working their staff to misery and not giving them a bonus. Anyone who dips into their own personal bank account to give donations is a quare fella/lady

NJSC1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121494911#Comment_121494911

Yeah Hutch is well known for his philanthropy alright 🤔

lisasimpson

For counties like Letrim,Carlow that's some donation.

What's he going to do if Limerick manage the famous 5 in a row

Hank the DJ

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121494911#Comment_121494911

That's a hell of an accusation to make against JP, I'm sure you have plenty to back it up.

lisasimpson

That's some insult to the man comparing him to hutch.

Throwing crumbs. I suggest you take a tour of the Midwest I'm not from Limerick. The amount he has given the hospital for example, the various equipment etc he has funded for it, has funded significant amount into facilities in UL just to name a few.

thinkabouit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121494911#Comment_121494911

Troll

gormdubhgorm

My first thought was how many of those 32 counties will waste the money and show how unprepared they are to do some long term planning?

It will be interesting to come back to this in 10 years time and see if many of the counties used the money with any level of foresight and astuteness. Or alternatively filtered away the money on white elephants etc

KaneToad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121494578#Comment_121494578

I'm definitely one of those. McManus has benefitted hugely from the the Irish tax payer but doesn't contribute himself. He funds his pet projects to boost his ego.

munchkin_utd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121495264#Comment_121495264

my reading of it is that €0 stays with the county boards, its to be passed on in full to camogie, ladies football, hurling and gaelic football clubs.

So the only white elephant you might get is a fence or something at a club ground.