Sir, – Last week, Allianz Ireland’s chief customer officer, Geoff Sparling, broke the company’s silence on the controversy surrounding its sponsorship of the GAA.Perhaps continued silence would have been the better option.His primary argument seems to be that UN special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, was wrong to name Allianz as complicit in the Israeli genocide in Palestine. He claims “Allianz Ireland has no investments or underwriting activities in the Middle East”, ignoring the fact that Pimco, an asset management company owned by Allianz, holds billions of euro in Israeli war bonds and other investments in Israel which fund mass killing, illegal occupation and apartheid perpetrated by a country on trial for the crime of genocide before the International Court of Justice. In fact the Allianz group is the biggest non-Israeli institutional holder of Israeli sovereign debt.Sparling’s comments came as the GAA central committee and management committee “overwhelmingly agreed” to maintain the partnership with Allianz. In maintaining this position, the GAA leadership is acknowledging its acceptance of Sparling’s untenable stance that Allianz Ireland is somehow a separate entity to Allianz plc, rather than a part of a global financial institution headquartered in Germany and named in a United Nations report as complicit in genocide in Palestine.The denial by the GAA’s leadership of the most basic facts concerning the relationship of Allianz Ireland with its parent company is a stain on the organisation as it promotes patently unreasonable arguments for the continuation of this damaging relationship. – Yours, etc,ÉAMONN MEEHAN,Chair, Sadaka-The Ireland Palestine Alliance,Blackrock,Co Dublin.