Key updatesSports Minister wants ‘realistic timeframe’ for integration after meeting with groupsIntegration will ‘take a long time’, GAA President saysJarlath Burns says integration would ‘double costs’ from €45m to €90m‘The GAA don’t want this’ – Cora Staunton slams director-general for ‘patronising’ interview over integration timeline 13 minutes agoDavid Kent
Listen: Mary McAleese vs Jarlath Burns | Inside the GAA’s integration row
The GAA’s plan for integration looks to be up in smoke after Mary McAleese resigned as chairman of the steering committee and fired plenty of parting shots at the GAA hierarchy on the way out.
In the latest IndoSport episode, Joe is joined by Colm Keys and Nadine Doherty to make sense of why the plan hit a speedbump and what might happen next.
Sports Minister wants ‘realistic timeframe’ for integration after meeting with groups
Sport Minister Patrick O’Donovan has said he “will not get into who is right and wrong” after his series of meetings with Gaelic games leadership after Dr Mary McAleese resigned from the group tasked with merging all three organisations.
Mr O’Donovan said he is satisfied that each body remains committed to integration and that they will continue to work together to achieve it.
The Fine Gael minister said it “was not a court I was convening today” and the priorities for integration remain the same.
He described each meeting as “positive” and refused to cast “judgement”, but said it was “disappointing” that Dr McAleese “found herself in the position where she had no other option but to resign”.
Mr O’Donovan said “some good” will come out of the situation as it has brought the issue into the headlines.
He added that he wants to see a timeline, but he is not currently looking beyond the next meeting of the committee in early October as they work to elect a new chair.
“As I said to all three, I would prefer that time frame to be realistic, then just be rushed. It is far better to get this right than to rush it.”
Mr O’Donovan acknowledged that the situation marks a “setback”, but all organisations remain committed to the project.
Maeve McTaggartSports Minister Patrick O’Donovan speaks to the media outside his department. Mícheál Ó Scannáil/PA 50 minutes agoDavid Kent
Cork legend Bríd Stack disheartened after ‘handbrake was pulled up on integration’
Cork ladies football legend Bríd Stack feels like “the handbrake has been pulled up” in the wake of Mary McAleese’s shock departure as chairperson of the Steering Group on Integration (SGI).
Stack, an 11-time All-Ireland winner with the Rebelettes, insists McAleese was “the perfect candidate to do the job” and she has expressed fears that the process will stagnate in her absence.
“It has been a mad 24 hours,” Stack said. “Listening to Mary McAleese’s interview was fairly disheartening; even as a parent it was disheartening from that point of view.
“No one was saying everything was going to be ironed out by April of 2027 but it feels like the handbrake has just pulled up now and that’s the thing that’s most unsettling.
“No one is saying that everything needed to be ironed out straight away but there needed to be some movement towards it after four years of hard work, you could hear the frustration in her voice.
Read the full piece here
Cork legend Bríd Stack disheartened after ‘handbrake was pulled up on integration’ and points to Australian modelCork ladies football legend Bríd Stack feels like “the handbrake has been pulled up” in the wake of Mary McAleese’s shock departure as chairperson of the Steering Group on Integration (SGI).www.independent.ieToday 03:46 PMDavid Kent
LGFA: ‘No shame’ in delaying timeline for integration
LGFA president Trina Murray said the organisation had a “very positive” meeting with Minister Patrick O’Donovan.
She said the organisation was “sorry” to see former President Mary McAleese step down from her role, but that the LGFA remains committed to integration.
Ms Murray said if the timeline needs to be delayed for the benefit of successful amalgamation of the organisations, then there is “no shame to do that”.
She said she could not comment on what the new timeline might be, but the LGFA is now looking forward to getting “back in the meeting room”.
Dr McAleese also met with the minister this afternoon, but did not speak with reporters in the aftermath
Maeve McTaggart
Today 03:07 PMDavid Kent
McAleese meeting with O’Donovan underway
Former Irish President Dr Mary McAleese is currently meeting with Minister O’Donovan, while representatives from the LGFA and the Camogie Association are also due at the Department of Sport.
Maeve McTaggart
Today 02:54 PMDavid Kent
GAA President denies ‘crisis’ after constructive meeting with Sport Minister
GAA president Jarlath Burns has denied there is a “crisis” within the organisation after what he has described as a “constructive” meeting with Sport Minister Patrick O’Donovan.
Asked by reporters after the meeting what the timeline for amalgamation looks like now, Mr Burns said: “We’re not going to get caught into timelines.”
He said the next meeting is on October 5 and the organisations want to make sure members are “fully up to speed”.
“Remember, we want to make sure that if we have a membership proposal, that people know what they’re going to become a member of. Therefore, it’s very important we have the structures in place too.
“Time is important, but it is also more important, I think, that we have the organisation that we all want, and we all can belong to, because we can’t do this twice.
“And I think the message that I would send out to all people who love Gaelic games around the country and around the world is to reiterate our absolute support and commitment to the integration of the three organisations. But to do it in a way that is right, and ensures that we can achieve the organisation we want.”
Mr Burns said the GAA, LGFA and the Camogie Association will move forward on integration.
“We were all surprised by what happened yesterday. We thought we had a really good meeting on Monday. We thought that we had made progress,” he said.
“Of course, in a negotiation like that, there will be bumps and bruises along the way. We had one whenever we felt that we couldn’t achieve the timeline for the October Special Congress or membership.
“That’s just a setback, but it shouldn’t be big enough that it’s going to scupper the process.”
He said it is “very disappointing what has happened, but we are very committed to the process, and we will move on towards integration”.
Mr Burns said timelines “are important, but they’re not the only thing”.
“The most important thing is that we do this correctly, because we only get to do this once. And there will come a time when we don’t have a Camogie association, and we don’t have an LGFA.
“Before we go into any scenario where the Camogie Association, or the LGFA cease to be, it’s very important that we hear their voice and their voice is strong and represented in whatever new organisation comes out of this.”
Asked whether this is the now the end of the crisis following the meeting with Mr O’Donovan, he said: “Well, we don’t see a crisis. We see something has happened. The chair has left, we will appoint a new chair.
“We are all as committed as we have been, and we will move on. I don’t see any crisis, because nothing really has changed.
“I thought that the meeting went very well on Monday. And remember, we are still in a negotiation phase, and that is very important that we are allowed to have opinions and even when we went around the country for the roadshow, not everybody in every room was aligned.
“And that’s going to be very difficult where we have three highly-functioning organisations, democratic organisations, that have to vote on whatever we decide to put forward. So, whatever we put forward has to be well thought out, it has to be strategic, and it has to be sustainable.”
Maeve McTaggart
Today 01:15 PMDavid Kent
Burns arrives for meeting with Sport Minister
GAA President Jarlath Burns has arrived for a meeting with Sport Minister Patrick O’Donovan.
On his way into the meeting, he said the organisation was operating to a timeline for amalgamation, but the feedback from members were that they “weren’t happy” with the planned structures.
Mr Burns said he did not want to pre-empt the conversation with the Minister in his comments.
He said the organisation wants to achieve equality players, “that every girl and every boy can feel that they are playing on an equal basis”.
Dr Mary McAleese is also due to meet with the Minister during a separate meeting this afternoon.
Maeve McTaggartToday 12:56 PMDavid Kent
Integration will ‘take a long time’, GAA President says
Jarlath Burns told RTÉ’s News At One there was a “legitimate fear” that integration could have been voted against at GAA Congress if issues around governance structures of the new organisation were not fully clarified.
He said membership of the integrated GAA would have been possible, but there were some people expressing confusion over exactly what they “were becoming a member of”.
“We felt that it would be better to wait until we have our actual Congresses, come with a different, more specific motion that would be more prescriptive as to what that new organisation will look like, to know exactly what we were voting for, because we have to vote for the structures first, and then vote for the membership.
“I think that will work. There’s no point in voting for the membership first until we have the structures, the high performance, everything else agreed, and then we can proceed.
“And it’s going to take a long time, because with every piece that we decide on, we have to go back to our members.
“We have to gain a consensus because that’s the way the GAA, Camogie Association and the LGFA work.
“It’s not like company law where you just go to the board and the board, we don’t have executive power. We have to constantly go back to our members.”
On how long integration will take, Mr Burns said the timeline “has actually held us back more than anything else”, but he still feels “a lot” can be achieved in 2027.
Darragh NolanToday 12:42 PMDavid Kent
Jarlath Burns says integration would ‘double costs’ from €45m to €90m
GAA president Jarlath Burns told RTÉ’s News At One he remains “absolutely committed to integration”.
Mary McAleese said on Tuesday that she was “shocked” to hear he did not “really support the idea”.
“I’m still absolutely committed to integration. I want every single girl who plays the game to feel the same way as everybody playing,” Mr Burns said.
Touching on the GAA’s statement in the wake of Ms McAleese’s resignation, which spoke about focusing on “equity” in the integrated organisation rather than “equality”, he said that specifically related to the highest level of intercounty Gaelic games.
He said that going straight to equality for intercounty ladies’ football and camogie teams at the elite intercounty level would see expenditure on county teams double from €45m to €90m.
“We actually have a poor record in the GAA of controlling expenditure currently.
“If we go straight into equality, the 45 million which we currently spend preparing country teams goes to 90 million. We just simply cannot sustain that.
“It’s about resources and the allocation of resources and fundraising that our county’s volunteers have to do.”
“I have to remember that I am the president of the GAA and I am accountable to the membership of the GAA, and in every county I go into, I hear of the same thing from county treasurers and county chairs to say, we have to be very careful that we don’t just double our expenses on county teams.”
Mr Burns said a committee has been set up to regulate county team expenses so the GAA “can do a better job of it” when integration is finalised.
“But it is not a question of trying to create a two-tiered approach. It is a graduated response depending on the development of the county team that is in the particular county.”
Asked if it was a worry for the GAA that greater resources would have to be allocated to women’s intercounty teams, Mr Burns said: “Probably, in a nutshell, yes, that’s it, because we just don’t have the resources currently to be able to provide for that.
“That is not to say that at a later stage, if we were in a situation where we were having similar crowds going to female games as male games, that we couldn’t get there.”
Today 12:29 PMDavid Kent
GAA President ‘disappointed’ by McAleese resignation and ‘regrettable’ comments
GAA president Jarlath Burns has said he was “disappointed by Mary McAleese’s resignation as chair of the integration steering committee, but he took issue with some of the comments she made in the statement she made on Tuesday.
“I’m very disappointed about the resignation of Dr McAleese. She’s somebody I have immense respect for,” Mr Burns told RTÉ Radio 1’s News At One.
“I thought it was wonderful that we had her as chair. I thought she did well.
“I felt that some of the comments which she made yesterday were very regrettable, particularly about the gender issue and about the role of women, because under my presidency, we have moved to a 40pc gender quota.
“It’s actually gone up to nine out of 19, which is closer to 50pc female representation, on the GAA’s Management Committee, which is the highest committee.
“Every national committee has significant female representation, and in fact, five of our national committees are chaired by women.”Darragh Nolan
Today 12:21 PMDavid Kent
What has Mary McAleese said?
McAleese has described the GAA’s stalling on the agreed timelines for integration as “almost like a betrayal of the women in our sporting cultures.”
McAleese stepped down after an ISG meeting yesterday where the GAA’s representatives pointed out that the agreed 2027 deadline — Special Congresses were to take place next month — could not be met.
The GAA sought more time, amidst concerns over potential inter-county costs, but McAleese saw that as the final straw and was highly critical of the current GAA leadership.
In an extensive interview on her departure with RTÉ Radio 1’s Inside Sport the former President of Ireland said it was “a slap in the face” for women in the GAA.
Read the full piece here
‘The GAA don’t want this’ – Cora Staunton slams director-general for ‘patronising’ interview over integration timeline
GAA director-general Tom Ryan was speaking in the wake of former President Dr Mary McAleese’s resignation as chairperson of the Gaelic Games Integration Steering Group
All-Ireland winning former Mayo ladies’ footballer Cora Staunton hit out on Wednesday morning at the GAA’s director-general Tom Ryan over a ‘patronising’ interview – saying she doesn’t believe the GAA want integration.
In an interview early on Wednesday morning, Mr Ryan said the GAA is “just not ready” for the proposed timeline for integration with the LGFA and Camogie Association.
Describing integration as a “complex undertaking”, Mr Ryan said the aim was to have a special GAA Congress ahead of the launch of integration in 2027, but he said the GAA has “missed a deadline”
His comments come in the wake of former president of Ireland Dr Mary McAleese’s resignation as chairperson of the Gaelic Games Integration Steering Group, a role she had held since 2022.
Read the full piece here:
‘The GAA don’t want this’ – Cora Staunton slams director-general for ‘patronising’ interview over integration timelineGAA director-general Tom Ryan was speaking in the wake of former President Dr Mary McAleese’s resignation as chairperson of the Gaelic Games Integration Steering Groupwww.independent.ieTickarooLive Blog Software