The GAA has requested more time to consider the Implementation Plan for Policing in Northern Ireland and has criticised the notice given to it about the plan.
The acceptance of the plan by the Government, the North's Catholic bishops and the SDLP has again drawn attention to the GAA's Rule 21, which prohibits members of the Northern security forces from joining the association.
According to GAA spokesman Mr Danny Lynch, the association waited until yesterday to receive a copy of the plan. "A copy of the report only arrived this evening and at our request," he said.
"We weren't even given a statement on the matter. As things stand, the Irish Government can envisage certain difficulties in the implementation plan and the SDLP have listed five additional issues for consideration, so we can't be expected to approve a plan that we have not even had the chance to read.
"We should have been given the courtesy of seeing the draft and we're entitled to a bit of space to consider it. We're two months behind everyone else and in the knowledge that we have been made central to the whole policing issue I think we were entitled to be circularised. This can't be an overnight decision given the consulting process we're committed to."
The GAA position on Rule 21 was formulated at a special congress in May 1998 when no decision was taken on a motion to repeal the provision. The initiative had come from then GAA president Mr Joe McDonagh but faced strong opposition from Northern delegates.
After a long meeting held in camera the GAA pledged "its intention to delete Rule 21 . . . when effective steps are taken to implement the amended structures and policing arrangements envisaged in the British-Irish peace agreement".
Whether the new policing plan meets these criteria will be a difficult issue for the GAA given the likely continuing opposition of the cross-Border Ulster counties. There are also practical considerations. The football and hurling seasons are reaching a climax and in October the International Rules series in Australia will mean top officials will be away for a fortnight.
Paul Tanney, in Belfast, writes: A Sinn Fein document inadvertently faxed to a Belfast newsroom outlines the measures it would take in a possible campaign of agitation against the new Police Service of Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein told Ulster Television that the document, a single handwritten sheet, had been considered at a party meeting but rejected.
"Agenda" is at the top of the document. The first point of the wide-ranging list of measures says "campaign - 2-3 months". This is presumably an estimate of the campaign's length, but it could indicate the time it would take to get such a campaign into full swing.
The document says "GAA (meeting local clubs, county boards)". Whether this refers to picketing such meetings, lobbying them or other measures is unclear.
It also refers to "secondary schools". These could be of key importance to any campaign of opposition to nationalists joining the police service. The document says there should be leaflets, posters and "anti-RUC materials, i.e. T-shirts, murals". The party should meet key people in the business community and church (defined as "priests"), it says.
Public meetings, involving debates with the SDLP, which has already signalled its support for the new arrangements, should be planned.