Praise for the GAA's amendment of rule 42 quickly gave way to caution yesterday, as the potential beneficiaries positioned themselves for negotiations and the Taoiseach warned that Ireland's stadium problems were not yet resolved, write Frank McNally and Mark Brennock
Even as the FAI and IRFU welcomed the temporary lifting of the ban on rugby or soccer at Croke Park, both kept open the option of playing their games elsewhere during the planned redevelopment of Lansdowne Road.
Bertie Ahern also welcomed the decision by the GAA's annual congress, but expressed doubt on whether Lansdowne Road in Ballsbridge would be redeveloped at all.
Speaking on RTÉ's This Week, he said the country needed a second "world-class stadium" to go with Croke Park.
"I hope we can turn Lansdowne into that. I will have my doubts until the day it opens because I just think it is in a very built-up area. It would have been better to have gone to an open space."
Congress approved the temporary lifting of the ban on hosting other games by 227 votes to 97, comfortably more than the two-thirds majority required.
The decision overshadowed a surprise result in the election for a new GAA president, in which Kilkenny's Nicky Brennan narrowly defeated Christy Cooney of Cork - significantly the only non-Ulster county mandated to vote against lifting the ban.
The decision on rule 42 clears the way for the discretion of GAA's central council to allow rugby and soccer internationals at Croke Park if and when Lansdowne Road is being redeveloped.
But with suggestions that the cost of hiring Croke Park could be up to €2 million a game, the FAI and IRFU were guarded in their welcomes.
The IRFU said it would still investigate all options of temporary accommodation, "both inside and outside the country".
The FAI noted that decisions on games due to take place during Lansdowne's planned redevelopment were a long way off, and added: "We welcome the fact that Croke Park may become available at that time."
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the vote was "an enlightened decision by an organisation which is not afraid of the future, and I welcome it very much."
The fact that the decision was by secret ballot made it "all the more powerful", he added.
Labour's spokesman on sport Jack Wall also welcomed the vote and the "spirit of generosity" in which it was made.
He said the GAA delegates had "done a service not just to other sporting organisations, but the country itself".