What do the GAA pay Danny Lynch? Whatever it is, it ain't enough. Not nearly enough. Not to compensate a man for some of the things he's asked to go out and defend or explain. So here's an idea. Unless Danny is getting a good chunk of the £60 million windfall I think Danny should be given some peace and quiet this week. Let's talk to a few of the big swingers instead. One vote on Saturday, one vote swinging the other way would have changed things. Who on earth were the 20 abstentions, who were the

20 Congress delegates without any opinions on the most compelling issue of the weekend. Croke Park? Duh, nobody tells me anything! Call us please if you went to Congress and had no opinions. And why not a recount? With just one changed vote standing between the GAA and a public relations disaster why not a recount? What had anyone to fear? Dimpled chads?

No recount because Frank Murphy says not? Bah! Let's have Frank Murphy on Liveline. Let Frank's dulcet tones be heard throughout the land. Big swinger, c'mon down. People will be angry with the GAA this morning. Nothing new there, but it's important to sort out a few issues before we take any of the callers who want to speak to Frank.

First of all the £60 million or the £85 million isn't the issue, churlish and embarrassing though the GAA's grasping hand may make it seem.

For its sporting, cultural and social input the GAA deserves that money. For its courage in undertaking the stadium development it deserves its bucks. For just being the GAA, huge and flawed and monolithic and part of what we are, the loot was deserved. For keeping their traps shut as the FAI landed in clover instead of in sewage over Eircom Park, the GAA deserved the cash.

Furthermore, that the money was given with no demands made on the use of Croke Park was apposite, gracious and politically expedient. The GAA has a right to use its grounds for whatever purposes it chooses to use its grounds, no amount of arm-twisting should alter that. Government demands regarding usage would have stirred the forces of darkness up still further. Take all that on board and the GAA were still wrong on Saturday. On Croke Park, a bold and exciting development, the association was caught cowering. All the old superstitions, all the old voices of regression came bubbling up to the surface. Rule 42 will go in a year or so anyway, meanwhile more bad publicity, another opportunity missed. On Saturday the GAA had a chance to make a positive statement about where it saw its future in Irish society. It had the chance to make Croke Park not just the beloved place it is but a place which, at times convenient to the GAA, would be central to the sporting aspirations of all Irish people. The money involved might have employed platoons of development officers. It would have bought thousands upon thousands of hurleys, tracksuits or jerseys. The money might have bought pitches, built clubhouses, sponsored development schemes, got clubs and county boards out from under the press of debt. Heck, it might have helped make Pairc Ui Chaoimh less of a tip than it is.

That's all before you count in the goodwill and the dividend that comes from using common sense. The GAA may have its £60 million this morning but it still has an asset which lies unused for six months of the year at a cost of over £2 million. Is anybody arguing that the GAA doesn't need that £2 million? Now before we take your calls let's just note that even more depressing is the broader consideration. The perverse daftness of the GAA is mirrored in the Government's approach to the BertieBowl, an out-of-control ego trip the farcical absurdities of which seem lifted from the old Yes Minister series.

Let's see. Over the weekend the Government slipped £60 million to the GAA to help it complete its own 80,000-capacity stadium. Apparently the only condition attached was that the GAA under-utilise 80,000-capacity stadium by playing some of its matches in the Government's 80,000capacity stadium. I'll give you the money to buy your own car, provided you use my taxis.

BEFORE a brick has been laid the BertieBowl seems clearly out of control costwise and reassurances that the private sector will be taking care of the bill over and above a certain point are meaningless. When the private sector come back in a few years' time and announce that the location is wrong, the projections were pie in the sky and the infrastructure is crap, it is the public who will be picking up the tab.

Bertie and Minister McDaid need to sit down and have a common-sense chat. Assuming that the GAA will finally get their numbers right and do the decent thing next spring, allowing the occasional usage of Croke Park, the Government could do us all a favour by building, irony of ironies, a facility along the lines of the late and unlamented Eircom Park.

Make it central, make it multi-functional, give it a capacity between 40,000 and 50,000. This would suit the GAA, the FAI and the IRFU. Then build a smaller downtown indoor arena with an ice hockey franchise or whatever in it. Forget the foolishness of the Olympics and put the remainder of the Sports Campus Ireland daydream somewhere else.

It's been a bad winter for the GAA. The leagues have been an unholy mess, the GAA's conduct in the matter of its TV deal has cost coverage and goodwill and the association looks like greedy dunces this morning. The future of Croke Park should be a management decision, the 32-county inclusiveness of Garth Brooks shouldn't matter.

Anyway, to our first caller . . . Your question for Frankie?