In October 2009, then GAA president Christy Cooney was blunt enough when assessing the special congress just concluded in City West. Its purpose was to regularise the following year’s championships in line with a DRA decision.
“It is a matter of concern that we have had to have a special congress and I’ve expressed my view that we don’t need special congresses. I wouldn’t have had one had this not arisen, and I did my best to try to avoid holding this if we could have dealt with it in another way.
“The congress lasted 40 minutes and probably could have lasted 20 but we are where we are and it’s certainly not my intention to have special congresses over the next three years. I don’t believe they’re necessary. However, we were in a bind on this.”
True to his word, there were no more special congresses on Cooney’s watch.
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This Saturday in Croke Park, a special congress will gather to pass final judgment on the Football Review Committee’s rule changes that have proved a consensus success this year.
There was probably no other way given the need for clarity before next season and the fact that the rules or enhancements had been accepted on a trial basis last November – at another special congress.
In fact, this weekend will see the sixth special congress in seven years – only 2022 couldn’t provide one – and there are concerns that these events should be kept to a minimum in line with Cooney’s views on the matter expressed 16 years ago.
It is hard to understand why the GAA brings delegations from around the world and all of the counties to deal with motions, the preponderance of which are very likely to be passed without murmur.
It has even been suggested that the matter could be expedited online and decided with a minimum of inconvenience, particularly with so many club championships going on at the moment.
Connacht chief executive John Prenty shares these concern about special congresses.
“I think they’re overused, even though in these circumstances, because of the way we wrote the enhanced rules in there, I think it’s probably definitely needed at this time but in general, they should be restricted to emergency motions or maybe every five years when playing rules come up for review. I certainly don’t think we need a special congress every six months.”
The only restrictions on holding a special congress are Rule 3.36 that it requires the assent of 60 per cent of Central Council to be called and cannot reverse a decision taken by the previous annual congress.
The argument has been made that an event like the coming Saturday’s could as easily be disposed of by Central Council in keeping with its powers under 3.41 (a) as the “supreme governing body of the association between annual congresses”.
There is also the further question of expense and inconvenience of dragging delegations from all over the island to debate in person when a remote or virtual meeting could more easily be held.
These reservations have been intensified by the nature of the imminent decisions. The FRC experiment was so enthusiastically embraced last November that the narrowest vote in favour of any of the proposals was 75 per cent – for the hooter clock, which has in practice remained the least popular of the ideas and one of the few thought to be in any danger of defeat on Saturday.
Prenty spoke at last February’s annual congress on a motion to restore to Central Council the right to limit the size of special congress delegations. A previous practice that they should consist of just 50 per cent of the delegates entitled to attend annual congress was overturned and the GAA now bears the expense of hosting full delegations.
A number of provincial councils – three of the four, Ulster being the exception – sought to restore the reduced number at this year congress in Donegal by amending the rule to read: “Central Council shall be entitled to determine the representation for any special congress”.
“I spoke at the last congress about the representation at the special congress,” says Prenty, “that it should be half the size. The funny thing about that motion was that the last thing I said was that in 20 minutes’ time, half of you will be pulling out to go to a league match somewhere – and I’d say it didn’t even take 15.”
