The Tyrone County Board has called for an increase in GAA funding for rural counties, claiming urban areas are being unfairly prioritised.
The county’s five-year-plan, launched at Garvaghey on Thursday night, declared that the Association’s heartland lies in rural Ireland, and demanded a change in funding policy at GAA Headquarters, which they say prioritises "metropolitan" areas.
Dublin is the major beneficiary, followed by Cork, while a £1million award was made to Belfast GAA last week.
"The vast bulk of public investment and infrastructure is already allocated to metropolitan Ireland so the GAA needs to reverse its strategy here, work to redress chronic imbalances and re-focus on its GAA heartlands," said the 'Raising the Red Hand Even Higher’ report.
"Tyrone, with others, is increasingly concerned at the prioritising of ‘metropolitan Ireland’ for GAA investment, something which can happen only at a cost to ‘non-metropolitan Ireland’.
"Rural Ireland (which includes Tyrone’s towns) has always been and remains the GAA’s key driver and already suffers gravely from service withdrawal, lack of opportunities, growing planning controls and debilitating emigration."
