Officership time limit for debate

THE five-year limitation on county board officerships, due to kick in at the end of the year, will be a subject for debate among delegates when annual Congress gets under way in Hotel Kilkenny this evening and before a motion to remove the rule comes up for discussion tomorrow morning.

Interestingly, a motion submitted by the Kilkenny County Board, which proposed the introduction of a rota system is certain to be withdrawn.

Apart from a proposal from a club in Monaghan to put no limit on the terms of office, the only other motion on this subject has come from the Cork County Board which suggests that (county) treasurers should not be subject to the existing rule. This had originally been recommended by the Strategic Review Committee but rejected at the Special Congress which followed. However, it was subsequently adopted at annual Congress.

GAA president Nickey Brennan is on record as stating he is not overly concerned about the regulation: “there have been quite a number of changes already in anticipation of the rule coming into effect.

“It’s a number of years since it was mooted, not a last-minute exercise. People got plenty of notice,’’ he said at the recent press briefing.

Kilkenny secretary Pat Dunphy is one of several high-profile officers who will be forced to bow out at annual convention at the end of the year unless Congress agrees to the Monaghan motion, as will chairman Ned Quinn (who chairs the Hurling Development Committee) and PRO Ned Buggy.

One exception will be the board’s long-serving Development Officer, Barry Hickey, who took over as treasurer last year following the death of the previous holder of the office.

According to Mr Dunphy, who has held the position since 1996, the likelihood is that they will not put their motion. While there was a lot of concern expressed at last year’s convention about the limitation on officerships, he explained that the motion eventually submitted to Congress didn’t properly reflect the views of the clubs.

The Kilkenny board has discussed the possibility of appointing a full-time secretary but taken no decision.

The first motion to be discussed could very well turn out to be one of the more important ones. It relates to the report of the Rule Book Task Force. The report, which has not been made public, will feature motions on disciplinary matters as they relate to the playing rules. One of its more interesting exercises was to adopt in rule relevant aspects of Central Council decisions on rule interpretation given from 1935 to 2006, inclusive.

The controversy sparked by UCD’s participation in the club championships for the last two seasons is reflected in a motion from the Athenry club in Galway which seeks to debar college teams from participation in the club championship at provincial and All-Ireland level. A motion favouring the entry of divisional or group teams has been submitted by the Clonaslee club in Laois, with the proviso that teams would be confined to three clubs with a population of no more than 6,000 people.

Another, more practical, issue of interest to third-level students will be covered in motions from the North American and Australian boards relating to the time-frame for which sanctions permitting them to play in the two regions are granted by Croke Park. While there have been indications of a difficulty with regard to the framing of the motions, Australian secretary Gerard Roe indicated it was likely they would agree a compromise proposal with the North American Board.