What should the Irish Government do with the €14 billion Apple tax money has been the source of much discussion over the past few months? The new directly-elected Mayor of Limerick John Moran wrote to Taoiseach Simon Harris in September asking that €2 billion of the Apple tax fund be given directly to the city and county. In a personal plea to Mr Harris, Mr Moran said that because the €14 bn windfall had come from industrial operations in Munster, over half the money should go to the region. He suggested that the money should be split with €3.5 bn going to Cork, €2 bn to Waterford, €1 bn to Galway and €2bn to Limerick. No doubt the Healy-Raes will look after Kerry on their own!
Moran said this would help re-balance the country’s economy which was “dangerously concentrated in the east.’’ He talked about the province of Munster and he included Galway in that, though it’s in Connacht; he was not talking about Munster Rugby, but no doubt the team in red do need help. If the economy is dangerously concentrated in the east then there is no doubt that the same situation applies in rugby union where Leinster are way ahead of the other three provinces. When rugby union went professional in 1995 it was former Munster and Irish international Tom Kiernan and subsequently a very able administrator, who came up with the idea that the IRFU should fund the four provinces as no individual Irish club could compete with clubs in England and France. While Leinster has had the upper hand over the three other Irish provinces in recent years, the last of their four European Cup wins was seven years ago in 2018. And surprisingly it is Munster, who are without a permanent head coach since Graham Rowntree quit in October, who were the last province to win a trophy when they beat the Stormers to win the URC championship in May 2023.
Former Irish Rugby star Tony Ward, who was reared in Dublin, but played for Munster, says that the IRFU must help and that their performance director David Humphreys needs to start work on spreading the talent pool that is coming out of Leinster, which is currently top heavy with Irish internationals. Munster fans were outraged last year when South African R.G. Snyman was allowed to transfer to Leinster and then Leinster signed New Zealander Jordie Barrett on a short-term deal. The 27 -ear-old has played 67 Test games for the All Blacks.
