Final airing of Croke Park issues

GAELIC GAMES: What is likely to have been the final flaring of the ailing controversy surrounding the use of Croke Park by other sports arose at the opening session of this year's GAA annual congress in the Great Southern Hotel in Killarney.

During the debate on the annual report of Director General Liam Mulvihill, Cork delegate Bob Honohan repeated his view that the decision to fix rugby and soccer internationals in Croke Park was contrary to the decision taken last year, providing for the headquarters venue being open during the period that Lansdowne Road is closed for redevelopment.

Arguing the redevelopment still didn't have planning permission, Honohan said: "Croke Park was not made available for an indefinite period of time. Temporary does not mean indefinite. Some experts have said that the IRFU will be lucky to have planning permission by 2009. This is not consistent with what was decided at congress last year."

Complaining that his advocacy of this point of view had led to personal abuse, Honohan addressed outgoing president Seán Kelly: "You called me wrong and mischievous and one journalist compared me to the Real IRA."

In reply, Kelly said: "We went through all of this at Central Council 15 minutes ago. This whole issue has been dealt with above board at Management Committee and Central Council. Nobody was duped, nobody was misled. Because there were reservations about playing permission we asked the foremost planning consultants in the country and they were of the opinion that it would take a year. So we decided to negotiate a deal for 2007.

"I didn't refer to you as mischievous. I put you on the Strategic Implementation Committee and then on the Central Disciplinary Committee for three years."

Later in the debate Honohan was supported by Down delegate Donal McCormack, who said: "The decision was made to (open Croke Park) during the proposed development. You can't re-develop when there is no planning permission. They now have one foot in the door and it's going to be very hard to close that door. I think that we have made a serious error."

In response to a Meath delegate critical of the Dublin and Tyrone players, Tyrone PRO Brendan Harkin defended his county's players and their avoidance on appeal of the suspensions handed down after the NFL match in February. "It was an injustice to say that our players had discredited our great association. We didn't agree with the charges brought against the players."

Dublin chief executive John Costello spoke briefly in endorsement of Harkin's views.

There were contributions criticising the decision to stage this weekend's NFL finals outside of Croke Park and a number of delegates also criticised the award of subscription TV rights to Irish cable channel Setanta Sports, both in Ireland and the US.

Dublin player Mark Vaughan was cleared by last night's Central Council meeting to play for his club Kilmacud Croke's in this weekend's county championship match against Thomas Davis despite his sending-off in the club's All-Ireland semi-final defeat by Salthill last February.