GAA president Jarlath Burns urges Mary McAleese to clarify 'regrettable' comments 

GAA president Jarlath Burns said that he is "still absolutely committed to integration". Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Jarlath Burns said comments made by Mary McAleese regarding the role played by women at the highest level of the GAA were "very regrettable". He also urged her to clarify the comments, calling them "quite offensive" to members of the GAA's management committee.

After resigning as chairperson of the steering committee for integration of the GAA, Ladies Gaelic Football Association and Camogie Association, the former president of Ireland said she suspected "there are people who are not entirely happy about the idea of including women in decision-making at the top level of Gaelic sports."

"I felt that some of the comments which she made yesterday were very regrettable, particularly about the gender issue and about the role of women, because under my presidency, we have moved to a 40% gender quota," GAA president Burns told RTÉ Radio 1.

"It's actually gone up to nine out of 19, which is [nearly] 50% female representation on the GAA's Management Committee, which is the highest committee in the GAA. Every national committee has significant female representation. And in fact, five of our national committees are chaired by women."

Burns added: "I just hope that in the fullness of time, Dr McAleese will reflect on that part of her remarks yesterday and maybe clarify them, because it is quite offensive to the people who are on that committee."

McAleese resigned as she felt support for integration happening by the April 2027 deadline no longer existed within the GAA. Burns acknowledged that the cost of funding female inter-county teams to the same level as their male counterparts was a concern. 

"Probably in a nutshell, yes, that's it, because we just don't have the resources currently to be able to provide for that," said Burns.

"That is not to say that at a later stage, if we were in a situation where we were having similar crowds going to female games as male games that we couldn't get there."

Burns said that he is "still absolutely committed to integration" adding that "equity is a staging post on the road to equality" for the association. 

"It's mainly at the high performance level, not at club level, not at national level, it's the high performance county level," he said.

"And you have to remember that GAA county secretaries reside in a world of logistics and GAA treasurers reside in the world of invoices. And we have to be respectful of those volunteers. 

"If you look at the main areas of high performance, development squads, gear, nutrition and catering, gym membership, size of panels, number of sessions per week, travel expenses, transport of a team, team holidays and training weekends. 

"We already operate an equitable model within the GAA for maybe in a county where football might be the developing code. The hurlers get more resources presented to them. And it's the same with the opposite. 

"We actually have a poor record in the GAA of controlling expenditure currently. If we go straight into equality, the 45 million which we currently spend preparing county teams goes to 90 million. We just simply cannot sustain that."