February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
It would be easy to surmise that this was an inevitable consequence of the ridiculously harsh economic climate. It might even be fitting to state there are probably more important ways to spend public money right now than on dressing-rooms and climbing walls and gyms. However, this is not something about which we should be too glib.
At the inception of the sports capital grant scheme, we were informed the funds would be drawn from the money generated by the National Lottery. If memory serves, it may have even been one of the justifications given for the initial creation of that enormous gambling enterprise through which ordinary people are too easily parted from their cash under the unlikely pretence they will perhaps win more. The Lottery won’t be shut down in the recession. Why should the sports grants system be?
There are other considerations too. Cullen’s admission would be a lot easier to stomach if he hadn’t been blowing cash from the state coffers gamboling around the world to sports events over the past year. He spent