+34
Former Irish president Mary McAleese has resigned as independent chair of the GAA integration steering group after the GAA proposed pushing the agreed 2027 target date back by up to five years. She accused senior GAA management of lacking vision and of resisting women in top decision-making roles.
Mary McAleese has resigned as independent chair of the GAA Steering Group on Integration after the GAA proposed delaying full integration by up to five years.
The former President of Ireland said the proposed change 'creates significant uncertainty around the previously agreed and publicly announced roadmap.
' RTÉ first reported the resignation, and McAleese expanded on her decision on Tuesday evening on RTÉ Radio 1's Inside Sport. Minister for Sport Patrick O'Donovan has requested the GAA's senior leadership attend talks on Wednesday to explain the collapse of the integration timeline. McAleese was appointed independent chairperson of the steering group in September 2022. In February 2024, the group announced an April 2027 target for full integration.
The GAA formally wrote to the steering group on Monday proposing a pause and a possible delay of five years. McAleese said she was 'absolutely devastated' and that she had given four years of her time to the project. She said the momentum for integration had faded within Croke Park. Asked whether progress was possible, she said: 'Probably not under the current management, I'd have to say.
' Her assessment of the GAA management committee was withering. 'I did meet the management committee, and a body, quite frankly, that was less than impressive and very disappointing to me as a long-term GAA supporter,' she said. She added that the committee was 'so lacking in vision for the future of the GAA' and that its stated concerns about finances had been answered with credible and workable solutions.
'The document they produced yesterday wittered on about how they continued to support integration except they weren't actually going to do anything because they blocked our progress,' she said. She repeated that the GAA had no other plan and said the leadership had failed.
'They blocked our plan and they have no other plan currently. The leadership is not evident and the commitment to integration has evaporated,' she said. McAleese also suspected resistance to women in top-level Gaelic sports leadership.
'I hate to say this, but I suspect that there are people who are not entirely happy about the idea of including women in decision-making at the top level of Gaelic sports,' she said. She said finance, facilities and fixtures had been major sticking points, but progress had been made. McAleese said she was broken-hearted for players and for parents of young girls.
'I think of my own daughter, who is up to her ears in the local GAA, and the women who have given so much to the GAA, who will see this rightly, in my view, as a slap in the face,' she said. Of GAA president Jarlath Burns, McAleese said: 'Yesterday I was shocked to hear the current president of the GAA say that in fact he didn't really support the idea, having supported it up to now at all our meetings.
' Asked about Burns and director general Tom Ryan, she said: 'I think you'd have to ask them and I'll leave it at that. ' She said integration had been passed by GAA Congress and that the GAA had come to her to chair the project. The Camogie Association thanked McAleese for her 'unwavering commitment' and leadership over four years.
Camogie Association president Brian Molloy said: 'Like Mary, I too was disappointed with the decision to step back from the agreed goal of one Association by 2027. I believe that while there were significant concerns, none were insurmountable.
' The LGFA said her resignation came unexpectedly, given what it understood had been constructive discussions at the steering group's Monday evening meeting. The association said it remained fully committed to integration and believed it was the best opportunity to strengthen Gaelic games for current and future generations, creating a more unified, inclusive and sustainable structure. Fine Gael senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn, a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport, strongly criticised the GAA.
'If any other organisation decided to behave like this way in relation to women, they would not get away with it,' she said. She said the GAA's move was not how business should be done.
'The first person I rang was the GPA to find out if they had any warning about this, and they didn't. I spoke to a senior official in the minister's department who didn't have any knowledge of this happening either,' she said. Sport Ireland and the Department of Sport were not aware, she added.
'That's not how you do business. It's very confusing. I don't think we really fully understand what is actually happening and why they need five more years.
' She called the proposed delay 'another lost decade'. This conversation started in 2022, she said, and it sounded as if the GAA wanted nothing to happen until 2032.
'What are they going to say to the young girls and their parents tonight? They're just telling them they're just not worth it right now, maybe they'll be worth the conversation in five years' time,' she said. She pointed to the irony of Croke Park hosting 82,000 people to see one female athlete last weekend.
'What's most upsetting about it is that you know deep down I was afraid this would happen. It's disappointingly predictable,' she said. Ní Chuilinn also said the GAA should explain itself publicly.
'The GAA should be out explaining what is going on. It's not acceptable that there will be no comment tonight. It's wild,' she said. Minister O'Donovan is understood to be frustrated by the GAA's proposed five-year timeline because it goes against the democratic process after Congress had endorsed integration.
He had been due to meet GAA officials on Wednesday about hurling academy budgets, but he asked the GAA's senior leadership to attend instead. Speaking about that meeting, O'Donovan said: 'Integration is really important for the Government and remains an absolute priority for me as minister. We will see what they're saying and outline our concerns with what we have heard.
' Late on Tuesday night the GAA released a statement thanking McAleese for her work over the past four years. It said the next phase would distil feedback into a refined set of key principles and structures, and derive a detailed, sequential workplan, all to be advanced in 2027. The GAA management committee includes the sitting president, director general, four provincial chairpersons and other elected and appointed representatives.
Members named in reports are Jarlath Burns, Tom Ryan, Vincent Neary, Michael Geoghegan, Tim Murphy, Martin Byrne, Seán Hopkins, Tracey Kennedy, John Murphy, Joan Kehoe, Keelin Kissane, Mary Judge, Moyagh Murdock, Fiona Joyce, Claire Aiken, Derek Kent, Helen O'Rourke, Hilda Breslin and Ger Mulryan.
IrishTimes 
The42_ie:'So lacking in vision for the future': Mary McAleese blasts GAA management as she resigns from integration committeeThis story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
Mary Mcaleese GAA Integration Resignation Leadership Criticism Steering Group GAA Integration Camogie Association LGFA Gaelic Games Governance
Ireland Latest News, Ireland Headlines
Similar News: You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Mary McAleese Leads Vision for Unified Gaelic Games by 2027Former Irish President Mary McAleese chairs the Steering Group on Integration (SGI), which was established in 2022 to merge the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA), and Camogie Association. The SGI aims to create a single governing body for all Gaelic games by 2027, built on the principle of equality. While some officials question the feasibility of this timeline, McAleese and the SGI remain confident that full integration is achievable.
Read more »
Tom Ryan says GAA commitment to integration remains firm after Mary McAleese resigns over missed 2027 targetGAA director general Tom Ryan has insisted the commitment to integration with the LGFA and Camogie Association remains firm after Mary McAleese resigned over the missed 2027 target. Ryan rejected accusations of misogyny and said revised structures proposals could be ready next year.
Read more »
Mary McAleese may have done the GAA a favour by burning the boatsThe biggest problem the integration steering group has faced is that its work has been so opaque
Read more »