The Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Dr Jim McDaid, has called on members of the GAA to take into account what he called “the new circumstances following the Patten Report on policing in the North”. Speaking to a GAA Banquet in Letterkenny, the Minister said that Mr Mandelson's statement to the Commons last week clearly reflects a desire to build a new and better society embracing all traditions in the North. He said he believes that members of the GAA will want to give their most earnest consideration to the implications of that major step forward. The Minister told GAA members that as the Good Friday Agreement develops, it will become possible for people of all traditions to get away from old controversies and consign them to history.
