IRFU is no gin and tonic brigade

There is no doubt that Ireland's performance in Paris has helped to move the focus of comment away from administrative matters back on to the field of play. As someone who has been watching Ireland in Paris for over 30 years, I am very happy to say that this was the best Ireland performance I have seen there. Here was a team which played with the pride and the courage the green jersey deserves. The happenings in the Stade de France aside, the performances of the A and under-21 sides in France last weekend should not be overlooked. Irish rugby is not just about the senior side, the IRFU has responsibility for and to all strands of the game in this country.

A loud chorus has gone up recently calling for the resignation of the entire IRFU executive committee. But accusation without substantiation is not fair to any individual or organisation. It has been stated that the IRFU executive is not accountable to any other authority and there is a perception that they are, to all intents and purposes, a self-appointed, closely-knit, authoritarian club whose members linger for about 20 years fortified by gin and tonic. What a load of utter rubbish.

So what is the composition of the IRFU, how is the executive committee appointed and is it true that they carry the ultimate authority for the game in this country? At the moment, the IRFU committee consists of 23 members, one, Trevor Ringland, is co-opted. But not more than two can be co-opted members. Contrary to a view regularly expressed, the Ireland team manager, Pat Whelan, is not a member of the executive. He does, however, attend meetings from time to time, but does not have any voting rights.

The executive consists of a president, two vice presidents, the immediate past president, who ordinarily serves for one season after he leaves office, the honorary treasurer, two representatives from each of the four provincial branches, one from The Exiles, two members of the International Board, six members elected from the floor of the a.g.m. and Ringland. So how do these people get elected? The branches nominate and elect their representatives and also put forward the candidates for election from the floor at the a.g.m. This means the 14 branch representatives have a majority on the committee.

And so we come to the extent of the input the clubs make to the union committee. The reality is that the branches are what the clubs make them and the union is what the branches make it. To state that the clubs have no input is absolute nonsense, their input runs right through the core of the whole structure.

For instance, 17 members of that committee have all been branch presidents as a consequence of having been their clubs' representatives on their branches. They are Niall Brophy, Noel Murphy and Billy Lavery, currently president, and senior and junior vice-presidents of the union, respectively; Bobby Deacy (Connacht), Roy Loughead, Andy Crawford (Ulster), Dan Daly and Michael Wallace (Munster), Peter Boyle and Eddie Coleman (Leinster); the two International Board representatives, Tom Kiernan (Munster) and Syd Millar (Ulster), Jim Stevenson and Dion Glass (Ulster), Barry Keogh (Leinster), Don Crowley and Malcolm Little (Connacht). Most of those men have also been presidents of their clubs.

The members of the committee who have not been branch presidents are honorary treasurer John Lyons, John Hussey, Stan Waldron, John Quilligan, Barry O'Driscoll and Trevor Ringland. But the direct involvement of the clubs goes further than that. Hussey (St Mary's College), Coleman (Terenure College), Waldron (Cork Constitution), Quilligan (Garryowen) and Daly (Sunday's Well) are all still their clubs' representatives on their branches and both Crowley and Little still serve on the Connacht Branch.

Some of the people who are currently making those charges have never attended an a.g.m. of the union and seem unable to differentiate between the committee and the council. The reality is that many of the committee do not go through one election process, but three. They have to be elected from their clubs on to their branches, by their branches to the union and then, in the case of every single member of the committee, endorsed by the council of the IRFU.

So does the committee, once elected, have plenary powers? It does not, for the overall authority is, in fact, vested in the council. Every change of law has to be ratified by the council, the accounts, the reports of the honorary treasurer, the secretary and every office on the committee must also be ratified by the council. The council consists of the incumbent president, the two vice-presidents, the past presidents, the honorary treasurer, the four trustees, currently Ronnie Dawson, Tom Kiernan, Tony Butler and Sir Ewart Bell; the incumbent four branch presidents, 10 delegates from each branch, one from London Irish and one from the Exiles.

They constitute the annual general meeting of the union. In relation to the former presidents, 18 still survive, but they are not, even should they wish, in a position to dictate events and keep all the "old " hands in power. Furthermore, because of age and other reasons not all of them attend the AGM. The truth is that the branch delegates have the numerical strength on the executive and the council. And where do they come from? The clubs.

At any time, should 10 clubs wish to call a special meeting of the council, it is in their power to do so. There are precedents for such meetings, but a more recent example of how the clubs can wield power happened in relation to the All-Ireland League.

In 1985, the IRFU executive wanted to inaugurate the league. Who shot that down? The answer is 22 clubs. That was their entitlement, but let us call it as it was and indeed still is. Who then, as recently as last season, stopped the attempt to cut down the number of first-division clubs and reorganise the competition? The clubs - including five who are currently in the first division, supported by the every club in the second division. All the members of the committee are former players themselves, some among the most distinguished ever to wear the Ireland jersey, they are men who have given a lifetime of service to Irish rugby at every level.

Certainly, they have made wrong decisions. Yes, on occasions they have dragged their feet on issues. But that could be said of every committee, at every level. Professionalism has imposed its own demands on the IRFU and all unions, it was uncharted territory and they did not handle every aspect of it well. But what union did?

This season the IRFU expenditure will come to over £12 million. Raising that kind of money is scarcely a task for a bunch of incompetents.