{"id":619283,"date":"2026-09-09T12:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619283\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T12:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:22:11","slug":"gaa-just-not-ready-for-integration-says-director-general-tom-ryan-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619283\/","title":{"rendered":"GAA \u2018just not ready\u2019 for integration, says director general Tom Ryan \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

GAA director general Tom Ryan<\/a> has said the organisation was \u201cjust not ready\u201d for the integration of the GAA, the LGFA and the Camogie Association within the 2027 deadline of the Steering Group on Integration.<\/p>\n

His comments follow the resignation of former president Mary McAleese from the steering group<\/a> and her assertion that the GAA\u2019s management committee was \u201cless than impressive\u201d and \u201clacking in vision\u201d.<\/p>\n

McAleese had remained steadfast in her belief the integration of three organisations could be completed by the 2027 deadline, but scepticism around that time frame from some of the parties involved had led to friction and her \u201cdevastating\u201d decision to resign. Ryan described the integration process as \u201ca complex undertaking\u201d and the GAA now recognised the organisation was \u201cjust not ready to do that\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve missed a deadline. It\u2019s our own deadline that we\u2019ve missed. And in hindsight, I think what we were aiming for just proved a little bit too ambitious. So, we just need to refocus and recast our plans. And above all, the commitment remains firm and absolute,\u201d he told RT\u00c9 Radio\u2019s Morning Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a couple of specific things that we needed to get approval for at this juncture, and they were going to be tricky. First of all, we have proposals around a common membership and reciprocation across the three organisations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s universal membership fees, family memberships, membership systems, and so on. And the second part was the organisational structures from the club level up to national governing body. The membership piece is ready, and the structures piece is not.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople might remember, we arrived at what we thought would be a good-looking structure, and we brought that around the country at a series of roadshows before the summer. The feedback from that, from members and delegates, was people wanted us to revise those and to look again at that and to do another pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we\u2019re still in the middle of that exercise. And really, in order for the thing to work, you\u2019d have to propose both together. You know, it\u2019s very difficult to envisage a common membership when you don\u2019t know precisely the shape of the organisation that you\u2019re going to be a member of, hence the delay.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Let\u2019s just slow down\u2019: plan to integrate Gaelic codes raises concernsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Ryan acknowledged that the resignation of McAleese was \u201ca setback\u201d, but that there would be bumps in the road. The GAA remained committed to the integration process, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commitment remains firm and absolute. I don\u2019t see a future for us as a stand-alone organisation promoting and offering male sports only. Our future is together. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe would be far stronger as a combined organisation. I believe that. The GAA believes that. I know that my colleagues in Ladies Football and Camogie believe that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll we\u2019re looking at here is, as I said at the outset, we missed a deadline, our own deadline. Our job now is just to recast things in the light of that. To learn from that and to push ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan said he could not offer a precise timetable for integration, a key element would be phased implementation. \u201cNot a single big bang.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChairpersonChairperson of the Steering Group on Integration, Mary McAleese. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Labour TD Alan Kelly, who is chairperson of the Oireachtas Sports Committee has expressed shock at the resignation of former McAleese. Representatives of the GAA had been before the Sports Committee a few months ago when they said \u201ceverything was hunky-dory\u201d. He had spoken with McAleese in recent hours and had been shocked, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many questions. I mean, you\u2019re going in front of an Oireachtas\u00a0committee representing the people, the people who have given hundreds of millions to what is\u00a0the best organisation in the country. I love the GAA, and yet they can just do this,\u201d he told Newstalk\u2019s Claire Byrne show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not surprised she resigned because it wasn\u2019t tenable for her to go in front of the people\u2019s\u00a0representatives by our committee a few months ago and tell us that basically this was happening\u00a0as the plan, and then for it to be pulled by one management committee of one of the organisations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s obviously a democracy issue there, but\u00a0that\u2019s not tenable for anybody, especially somebody of her status. Even her tone, she\u2019s very upset about this.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, let\u2019s call a spade a spade here. This was always\u00a0going to be a challenge. We knew that. We weren\u2019t expecting miracles. But the idea was that 2027 was going to be the year where you have one club, one organisation. And yes, there was a whole\u00a0range of strands that had to be dealt with and will be dealt with over a couple of years,\u00a0et cetera.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we expected. But for this to just be torpedoed. I think the Minister and the Government should probably reflect on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly said that McAleese\u2019s resignation had to be \u201ca line in the sand\u201d with regard to the issue of equality. \u201cOrdinary people\u00a0across the GAA, female and male, really need to stand up and hopefully will in relation to this\u00a0issue, because it\u2019s 2026. We need to treat everyone equally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GAA director general Tom Ryan has said the organisation was \u201cjust not ready\u201d for the integration of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4183,42,91290,5785,43,262817,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-619283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-gaa","tag-headlines","tag-ladies-gaelic-football-association-lgfa","tag-mary-mcaleese","tag-news","tag-tom-ryan","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}