Congress must strive toward consistency

SEÁN MORAN ON GAELIC GAMES:THE QUICKENING of the heartbeat and a sharp collective intake of breath indicate that this year's annual Congress cannot be far away. Despite the worthy reforms of the Congress review committee of 11 years ago the meeting of the GAA's supreme governing body remains a distant concern for most ordinary members.

This is particularly true of what are characterised as "quiet years". There are also particularly unquiet years such as three years ago when we had a presidential election and the major set-to on Rule 42 all on the one afternoon.

This weekend will fall somewhere in between. There will be another presidential election to see who succeeds Nickey Brennan in a year's time and a few interesting motions, the highest-profile of which concerns the Government's awards scheme for inter-county players.

With concern growing about the disconnection between the membership at large and the top level of GAA administration in Croke Park, questions have to be asked of Congress and its effectiveness.

Gathering together a couple of hundred of delegates once a year is a pretty unwieldy way to run a large organisation that depends on hundreds of everyday decisions. The business of commandeering an oil tanker to cross a pond was well summed up by former Director General Liam Mulvihill, who observed two years ago: "One aspect that the work of the Rule Book Task Force has brought to light is that the association is so complex and multi-faceted today that no one set of rules can be drawn up with sufficient flexibility to govern it. Much more use will have to be made in the future of guidelines and directives approved by the Central Council for the overall good of the association.

"Directives/guidelines have the advantage that they can be amended quickly and without the cumbersome process required for rule changes, so it is likely that more and more of the association's governance will be through such instruments in the future."

Does that detract from the self-avowedly democratic nature of the GAA? Not really, as long as any such directives and guidelines are incorporated where necessary into the official guide at the next available opportunity. Congress is realistically about bigger-picture issues. It may have to debate and pass judgment on packages of intricate measures but these are always framed by special task forces and spoon-fed to delegates for their views and it is issues like Rule 42 and the use of Croke Park that trigger the broadest debate and on which everyone has a strong view - a reality best reflected in Rule 76 (f), which includes in the functions of Congress, "To determine association policy in broad outline".

This provides a platform for the membership to have their say on major issues and so strengthens belief in the power of the GAA's democracy. Aside from this aspect, which could sceptically be characterised as PR, how useful is the notional grassroots input into policy? The weekend's motions list contains a couple of illustrative examples. One proposal advocates that any special Congress shouldn't be allowed overturn a decision of the most recent annual congress. Assuming that a decision didn't actually need to be overturned - for legal or other reasons - there is merit in not allowing the organisation to change tack at every opportunity, which would plainly make administration unnecessarily tortuous.

Yet the motion proposing that NFL Division Four counties be readmitted into the All-Ireland qualifier series does precisely this.

When anyone discusses the difficulties that have arisen between Croke Park and the ordinary membership the largest presence in such a discussion is the intrusion of inter-county activity into club programmes. Concern about that particular interface was at the heart of the recent special congress in January and a number of measures have been introduced to alleviate the position in recent times.

It was at the October 2006 special Congress that a number of rationalisations to the inter-county calendar were accepted. These were designed to free some extra dates for club activity and included the proposal that the bottom eight or nine (depending on whether Kilkenny participate) counties in the National Football League lose the right to compete in the qualifiers, thus reducing the series by one full round.

Such was the enthusiasm for the idea that there was a groundswell of opinion to introduce it even earlier than proposed. "We can't afford to put it back to 2008," said Offaly delegate Michael Sheridan (whose county ironically was one of the first to be affected).

Of course in the perfect laboratory conditions of October 2006, no one sufficiently exercised by the matter really envisaged themselves as being in Division Four by the start of the following summer's championship.

As soon as the reality of that status began to bite counties began to react with alarm. Wicklow, with Mick O'Dwyer in his first season, were particularly aggrieved as Division Four hovered into view. So it's no surprise that the county is this weekend advocating that the status quo ante be restored.

But have the conditions - as opposed to the fortunes of Wicklow and others - that produced the original decision fundamentally changed? Counties aren't being excluded from the senior championship, as was the suggestion in the 2000 Football Development Committee proposals. They're simply not being allowed a second chance.

The competitive integrity of both the championship and the National League has been enhanced by the current rules but more importantly the thinking behind the decision in 2006 was clear-sighted and uninfluenced by the circumstances of individual counties.

It would hardly reflect well on the standing of Congress if having taken a significant decision on what is to many members the most pressing issue of the day it performs a U-turn in less than 18 months.

smoran@irish-times.ie

" Assuming a decision didn't actually need to be overturned - for legal or other reasons - there is merit in not allowing the organisation to change tack at every opportunity which would make administration unnecessarily tortuous