Proposed motion to revise Dublin GAA funding struck out a second time

The proposed motion to revise the amount of funding being allocated to Dublin as part of a review of all games development grants has been ruled out of order by the GAA’s Rules Advisory Committee (RAC).

This is the second time that the proposal, which seeks to tie development funding to registered membership in counties and has the support of six counties, has been struck down by the RAC.

John Connellan, the former Westmeath footballer who has been campaigning on the issue, reacted in exasperation to the decision and called on the GAA to reinstate the motion.

Connellan had early last year flagged his desire to ensure that the motion was in order in correspondence with GAA director general Tom Ryan. After Offaly, Westmeath, Galway, Mayo, Clare and Tyrone had supported the proposal, Croke Park remitted the motion for amendment two weeks ago and gave the proposers a week to address its procedural flaws.

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That was unsuccessful and so the motion won’t go to congress. Connellan expressed his frustration at the fact that the resubmitted proposal was struck down on different grounds than the original presentation.

From a clerical matter that involved citing in full the text of the proposed new rule and other rules affected, the new grounds were given as 3.36 (f), which stipulates that one of the functions of congress is “to determine association policy in broad outline” and that the disallowed motion exceeds that remit.

RAC in their determination said that “because a similar motion had been submitted by a number of other units, the subject matter merits discussion and agreed to forward the motion to Central Council for consideration”. This was rejected by Connellan because Central Council isn’t an open forum.

In a letter to Croke Park, he called “on your offices and the RAC, in the interest of fair procedures and basic democracy, [to] re-consider your position and ensure our motion is brought for public debate at our annual congress and ensure that clubs across the country see they have a role in the formulation of GAA policies as the basic and most important unit of the association.”