Electing officers a good habit to maintain

SEÁN MORAN On Gaelic Games:We will miss the excitement generated by a GAA presidential election and the drama of the result, to say nothing of the speeches

COINCIDENTALLY, IN a week dominated by the minutiae of voting, election counts and the changing of the guard, the GAA managed to fill the highest office in the association without a ballot being cast. Liam O’Neill from Laois accordingly becomes president-elect a little earlier than the traditional 12 months in advance.

The only other occasion of which I am aware of this happening was the return of Maurice Davin to the presidency in 1888, a year after an IRB putsch had deposed him.

In recent times there has been something of an incentive for aspirants at least to run for office, as seven of the last nine presidents lost a previous election before achieving success. That figure will in a year’s time become eight of the past 10.

Maybe this gave an air of statistical inevitability to O’Neill’s election, although the exceptions to the rule were successive recent presidents Nickey Brennan and Seán Kelly. One way or the other, it’s probably not ideal that the office should be filled without a contest but that’s no reflection on the new president-elect.

It could probably equally be argued these elections were seldom vibrant debates about contrasting visions for the future but rather full-court presses launched at key opinion formers in the association and those for whom favours may have been done on the dogged trek to the top.

But there is a sense of mandate about winning an election that unanimous selection doesn’t quite have. That may be unfair on a candidate to whom there are literally no objectors but as the above statistic indicates the election can be as much a rite of passage as being chair of a provincial council.

Unanimity is also a concern because it can become the norm, as an organisation loses the habit of electing its highest office holder.

In the country at large between the death of Erskine Childers in 1974 and the election of Mary Robinson there were three uncontested elections for the presidency of Ireland. And there has been just one in the 22 years since, although there is likely to be another next autumn.

The head of state in this country is a largely ceremonial role for all the few specific constitutional powers and it is strictly non-political. Consequently it’s easy to see why people got out of the habit of electing the office holder, particularly if there’s broad satisfaction with whoever’s doing it.

This isn’t a bad comparison with the situation in which the GAA find themselves. Liam O’Neill has impressed with the diligence of his commitment to the association in the three years since his defeat by Christy Cooney in Sligo and there was obviously a prevailing view that he would be hard to defeat in any election.

But the role of GAA president isn’t as strictly circumscribed as that of Uachtarán na hÉireann. Certainly there are parameters laid out in the Official Guide but inevitably there are ambiguities about how precisely presidents should occupy themselves in office.

Neither of the two big reform blueprints of the past 40 years, the reports of the McNamee Commission (1971) and the Strategic Review Committee (2002), were terribly detailed on what the office should entail.

Broadly speaking, the former thought the president was over-worked and according to the SRC, the office should mirror that of a non-executive chair in a large organisation.

The new Official Guide (2009) refers to the president as the “representative of congress” and that’s fair enough but few big companies get landed with a non-executive chair, who is produced by a such a random process – and with such a random range of skills – as the congress election can produce.

The representative role, which can be seen in such functions as opening club houses, making speeches and doing media interviews, is important but has become balanced with quite onerous administrative functions, such as specialist commercial negotiations.

In times gone by one of the hoariest of questions for candidates was whether they agreed that the presidency should be remunerated. The answer was nearly always that such a move would undermine the association’s director general.

Ironically that danger was always there regardless of salary.

In the past few years presidents have been paid, according to whatever scale they were on in their occupation. This has led to controversy with incumbent Christy Cooney coming from a senior role in FÁS, the state industrial training agency, where he earned a six-figure sum.

Whereas it had become unfeasible to expect presidents to live without an income given the demands of the office, a salary cap is likely to be introduced in the future.

Liam O’Neill is a school principal and it is unclear whether the newly-elected Government will be willing to treat his sabbatical as paid rather than unpaid, as has happened in the past. Either way – and rightly – he will be remunerated.

He has been a bit self-deprecating about his candidacy, saying he’s surprised on one level to be unopposed and expressing his discomfort with the more showbiz aspects of running for election.

But O’Neill will be a very good president. He is progressive in his views but firm in his defence of the rule book and unafraid to take on advocacy roles on difficult issues – as he showed when promoting the disciplinary reforms that narrowly failed to pass congress two years ago.

He also understands the communications crisis afflicting the GAA through what he accepts is a “perceived disconnect” between the membership and Croke Park.

Current president Cooney has taken steps to address this by taking extensive soundings in clubs around the country through the Ag Éisteacht initiative and this week’s national road-show to evangelise Croke Park’s position on a range of controversial issues is further evidence.

We will, however, miss the sense of excitement generated by a presidential election and the drama of the result, to say nothing of the speeches – the best of which had to be Noel Walsh’s concession after an unsuccessful but respectable bid for office in 1999.

“I’d like to thank those who voted for me – there weren’t many, but thanks. I’d like to thank those who voted against me because, well, that’s democracy and I’d like to thank all those who promised to vote for me but didn’t quite get around to it.”