Doubts grow over 2027 target for merger of GAA, LGFA and Camogie Association
DELAY: Steering Committee Chairperson Mary McAleese speaking during a recent media update on the integration process involving the Camogie Association, the GAA and LGFA. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
Officials involved in the national integration process are privately admitting the 2027 deadline for the amalgamation of the three Gaelic sports bodies will not be met.
There is no clear danger of the merger between the GAA, Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) and The Camogie Association (CA) falling apart.
However, the timeline, which was announced almost three years ago in February 2024, is now considered unrealistic even by those charged with implementing the amalgamation.
That acceptance comes as has learned several counties have yet to form integration work groups as they had been instructed by their respective organisations at national level.
In October, the three boards in each county were requested to come together and establish committees by the end of 2025 with a mind to commencing their work this month.
The work groups are to comprise two persons from each organisation and a chairperson appointed by the GAA county board in consultation with the two other associations.
Ahead of the steering committee on integration’s roadshow next month where they will unveil their draft plan for the merger, the slow uptake from the close to 100 county boards on the island to embrace the next stage of the process is indicative of the challenges facing the initiative.
As GAA president Jarlath Burns told an Oireachtas committee meeting last month, it is at county level where the greatest “apprehension or anxiety” about the potential of integration is being felt because the €44 million spent on team expenditure on football and hurling teams could be doubled.
A number of GAA county chairpersons maintain the LGFA and CA should first merge before combining with Cumann LĂşthchleas Gael.
Speaking last month, steering committee chairperson Mary McAleese told an Oireachtas committee that the 2027 date was “realisable” at the same time “relaxed”.
The former President of Ireland said: “If we were starting today, 2027 would be a very ambitious target. We started in 2023. We set that target date then and it was and remains a relaxed target date. It is our target date for integration, for one organisation representing all codes to be in place in 2027.
“In the intervening years since we first announced that date, and that date was gathered from looking at the work that needed to be done to achieve integration and do it well, we have been doing the work consistently.
“At times it is overwhelming. If we were starting today, of course it would be ambitious, but in 2023 it was not ambitious and it is not ambitious now. It is a realisable target. That is the plan we have been working towards. It is the date we have been scheduling everything towards and we believe firmly that it is achievable.”
McAleese added the steering committee would shortly put in place a diary of objectives. “We have a schedule that will lead us into 2027 and to the one association in 2027.
“We have been working to a plan, which was, first, to get all the information that we needed to have available to us before we could put a diary into effect. We are fairly close to that now.”
The steering committee are due to commence a five-stop roadshow of the country next month where they will be seeking feedback on their draft plan. McAleese has stated an implementation group will then be required to put the strategy into action.
Both Joint Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport chairman Alan Kelly TD and Senator Garret Ahern advised the committee to expand the consultation period, which is expected to be approximately six weeks.
“Regarding the roadshow, from what we are discussing and all the issues we have gone through, I would encourage the witnesses to widen that a bit,” said Kelly.
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