St Mary's Sports hall committee hit back over claims from Portlaoise Panthers

Following on from a long and strongly worded statement released by the Portlaoise Panthers Basketball club surrounding the use of St Mary's Hall, the hall committee have issued a statement of their own in response.

In reply to the rent issue, where the basketball club confirmed they pay in the region of 45,000 euro per year, the hall committee commented with the following.

“The Sports Hall does not charge anybody in advance. Portlaoise Panthers are invoiced after each four weeks of use. If they pay in full within the next four weeks, they receive a 20% discount.

“The Sports Hall does not charge membership fees. They are a matter between the basketball club and its members. For the information of parents who may be concerned about membership fees the following may be beneficial.

“After discount, the Panthers hall rental fee per hour is €24 before 6pm and €32 after. Simply divide the relevant rate by the number of children in the session and that is what the Sports Hall gets from your child.”

The Parish committee were also criticised about an apparent lack of financial transparency and had the following to say on that matter.

“When the Sports Hall Committee sat around the table with the Panthers committee to discuss the possibility of a joint venture in the proposed new development, the likely operational costs of running the hall, that would be shared going forward, were a significant part of the proposal.

“To inform that discussion the Sports Hall's accounts for the previous five years were discussed in detail.”

Another issue from the Panthers side of things was that they had no representative on the hall committee but the parish committee have since claimed otherwise.

“One of our committee members is an active playing member of the Panthers club. As our Covid Officer, she deals directly with her opposite number from the Panthers executive committee.”

The St Mary's committee also defended their history of reinvesting money into the hall after the Portlaoise Panthers claimed that money taken in was not being put back into the hall.

“In the lifetime of this committee virtually everything except the four walls has been replaced or upgraded at least once. New roof, maple floor, toilets, changing rooms, kitchen and upstairs area with fully glazed wall, two heating systems, lighting, car park, fire exits, fire and security alarms, etc.

“Were it not for Covid, a new extension and renovation works to include new toilets and changing rooms, along with separate accessible and referee changing areas, new entrance and lobby area with viewing wall, new office, new mechanical ventilation system new storage rooms and more would have been completed by last September.”

“The basketball club have had the use of the upstairs kitchen and seating area for some years now at no extra charge. They run a shop from there which in their own words “generated much needed revenue for the club”.