Board executive refuses to accept no-confidence motion

THE Cork County Board executive last night refused to accept a motion of no-confidence in the executive over their handling of the recent hurling dispute that had been proposed by the Ballyhea GAA Club.

The motion received no support from other delegates at a county board meeting in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, with several delegates speaking out against it. Chairman Jerry O’Sullivan expressed his disappointment that the motion had been brought forward and referenced Rule 50 of Treoir Oifigiúil, which states that executive officers are elected at county convention and remain in office until the next convention. O’Sullivan again defended the board’s conduct throughout the bitter five-month impasse.

O’Sullivan said: “We are not accepting this motion. Under Rule 50, we are elected to office. This is unprecedented, I have never heard of it in any other county. I can’t for the life of me understand the difficulty with our handling. We’ve done everything correctly since day one. We’ve had meeting after meeting, given pages of information. As far as the board is concerned, I fail to see what more we could have done. It doesn’t make sense. I can’t really see the purpose behind this motion.”

The motion had been brought forward to the meeting by Ballyhea delegate Michael Byrne and the exact wording of it was that: “Ballyhea GAA Club proposes a vote of no confidence in the officer board of Cumann Luthchleas Gael Contae Chorcaí because of the way they handled the recent dispute.”

Opposition to the motion came from several delegates, with Cobh delegate Tom Hayes stating: “I don’t know how we can accept a motion like that. Are we going to sit at the next meeting, castigate and ridicule the executive?” Carbery delegate Frank Long appealed to the Ballyhea club to withdraw the motion and claimed “it would tear the county apart”.

Central Council delegate Bob Honohan queried whether the motion was even permitted, due to Byrne’s revelation that the wording of the motion had been altered from the one that was circulated to Ballyhea club members before their recent Special General Meeting. Byrne responded to this by stating: “I’m instructed by my executive committee that Croke Park were contacted as to whether motion could be amended. They were advised that it could be, as long as it remained within the spirit of the original motion.”

Meanwhile it also emerged at the meeting, that a special board meeting will not be required to ratify the new Cork senior hurling boss before their NHL game with Kilkenny on April 5. The next Cork County Board meeting is not scheduled until April 7, but delegates decided that if the three-man selection committee of Denis Coughlan, John Fenton and Jimmy Barry-Murphy choose a manager before then, that candidate can be in charge for the Kilkenny tie before being ratified at the April 7 meeting.

Jerry O’Sullivan also announced that the executive are set to commence visits next week to divisional boards, where they will address representatives of junior clubs. This measure is being introduced as an attempt to address the democratic deficit within Cork GAA, which came in for serious criticism during the hurling dispute.