The Minister for Sport has defended his decision to pause League of Ireland funding, insisting the football fans need greater protection from “yobs”.
Last week, Drogheda United fans threw flares onto Dundalk's newly relaid artificial pitch at Oriel Stadium.
One of the flares hit a 12 year old child, leaving him with burns that required medical treatment.
In response, Minister Patrick O’Donovan announced a pause in funding for League of Ireland astroturf investments until he received a "sufficient response".
On Newstalk Breakfast, the Minister said his focus was on the injured child and the safety of fans.
“I mean, at the end of the day, I worked in health and safety ever before I went into politics,” he explained.
“This was a total violation of any kind of a health and safety protocol and there was absolutely zero health and safety rules attached here.
“It was completely reckless, it was completely without precedent and it's only the look of God that we're not talking about a fatality.”
Minister Patrick O'Donovan. Picture by: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie.The Fine Gael TD for Limerick continued that both the FAI and League of Ireland have a responsibility to ensure that their fans are safe when they attend matches.
He added that while a child was injured at Oriel Park last week, he feared “it could be somewhere else this week”.
“I basically meant what I said about the FAI having to come to the table with real and meaningful proposals around the health and safety of all patrons who want to go to games and enjoy them and be away from yobs,” he said.
“This was only going to be treated as an isolated incident.
“And unfortunately, some politicians couldn't see the bigger picture.”
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Yesterday, the League of Ireland's disciplinary committee announced a ban on Drogheda United fans attending their team’s next four matches.
In a statement, the committee said the sanctions were “deemed necessary by the Independent Disciplinary Committee considering the magnitude of the incident”.
The FAI and the League of Ireland have also met Minister O’Donovan, who said they did not ask him to unpause State funding for astroturf investments.
“They knew well that the sanction here was necessary, in order to invoke the sort of change that we're now seeing in the game,” he said.
“Which is that this is going to be transformative for thugs and hooligans, who think that they're going to walk into any stadium operated under the auspices of the FAI and the League of Ireland to go in and cause havoc.
“So, there has been a mindset changed.”
Minister O’Donovan said the FAI agreed to fund more CCTV and make greater use of dogs.
He also promised to set up a taskforce on safety standards for all field sports in conjunction with Sport Ireland.
Main image: Oriel Park.
