AFTER a Central Council meeting stretching into the early hours of the morning, Dublin had all but one of their appeals against Leinster Council suspensions rejected. Last night Dublin were not ruling out the possibility of legal action.
They remain suspended from this and next year's under 21 championship and the individual suspensions were also upheld with the exception of substitute Brendan Shovlin. This means that Damien Bolger's two year ban remains and manager Dave Billings must serve his year's suspension.
Shovlin had been involved in a case of mistaken identity. Offaly, their opponents in the under 21 match that sparked the controversy, had made only two appeals and both were successful. Substitutes Stephen Byrne and Ivan Dunne were adjudged not to have received adequate notice of their hearing.
The meeting had been fixed for six o'clock, before the start of this year's annual GAA Congress in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin.
After nearly two hours, only Dublin's appeal against suspension from the 1997 and 98 championships had been heard and president Jack Boothman proposed that the Council reconvene after the first session of congress.
The decision was to turn down Dublin's appeal was taken by 26 votes to seven with nine abstentions. The appeal was based on eight grounds but the strongest of these were technical arguments.
The first point was struck down on grounds of practice, that Leinster's Activities Committee had included extra members since 1926 and that this had been accepted by Dublin for over 70 years. The second was rejected because the relevant Leinster by law provides for minutes of the Activities Committee, rather than its decisions, to be submitted for sanction Dublin substitutes Shane Heraty and Tony O'Gorman had their six month suspensions upheld.
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