A drugs addiction counsellor and recovering addict has warned GAA clubs about how they approach drug use by their members, cautioning them against "enabling" troubled players as a way of offering support.
As part of the launch of a drugs programme for GAA clubs in Waterford, a top referee said it is an "indictment" on the organisation for how it has approached the use of recreational drugs by players and club personnel.
The programme has already been rolled out in Carlow and Kilkenny in recent months and sees gardaí and family resource groups visit individual clubs to speak to members on the use of drugs.
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It heard from George Henderson, who works as a counsellor while recovering from an alcohol and cocaine addiction, who said he has seen clubs respond to drug use by key performers by handing the player the captaincy, believing the responsibility would help them turn things around off the field.
"But it doesn't, it just leads to the player eventually leaving himself down and leaving the club down," he said.
"I had a coach ring me last year and he said to me, 'We know [this player is] taking something, but we can't lose him, we can't lose him - he's our main player,'" he added.
Henderson recalled being asked about making the troubled player the captain of the team as a way to ward off future problems.
"I said don't do it. He'll let you down - he can't help it. He'll let himself down, he'll let the club down and he'll let everyone down."
He added: "Clubs will make this fella their captain and he might sort himself out. To me that's a myth. To me, that's enabling that player to do whatever he wants."
Instead, Henderson suggested talking to the player, to "give him an option, offer him support, offer him help".
Drug use in the GAA has become "rampant" in recent years, he continued.
"Addiction in GAA clubs is out there and it needs to be spoken about."
Garda Inspector Alan Kissane, who is a national advisor to Croke Park for football, told the meeting that he has seen "behavioral issues of fellas on the field who I know personally have been taking drugs" off it.
"I know because through the [Garda] job, I've either been present when they've been caught or I've seen they've been caught and I see the behaviour on the field change.
He said there have been too many players who've had promising careers as teenagers, only to "fritter away from the scene", with Kissane claiming to have seen in certain cases some years later that the player has been "caught with drugs" and has wound up in court.
The Tipperary man, who is a member of Dunhill GAA in Co Waterford while being involved in GAA around the southeast, said he was aware of instances where there's been players have committed "thefts from dressing rooms" of a mobile phone or small sums of money to pay for their cocaine habit.
"We educate the youngsters and try keep them away from it," he said, adding that he has come across some players through emergency services on the evening after a game "saying they're going to kill themselves".
"So it is very evident and something we have to address together," he said.
"I've refereed a good bit in Waterford and in a lot of counties and I can tell you here hand on heart that I've gone into dressing rooms and club houses and I've seen signs up for child safeguarding [and] harassment and bullying posters.
"I've never seen drug awareness poster in any dressing room or any clubhouse I've been in. That's an indictment on all of us, not just the association but all of us."
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