The weekend's annual congress was a significant one for the GAA in more ways than the obvious. In some respects it was highly successful; in others it highlighted the increasing pointlessness of congress as a deliberative forum., writes Seán Moran.Gaelic Games

Admittedly the clár for this year was enormous, combining playing rules motions, a hugely contentious issue in Rule 42 and a presidential election. But within this crowded schedule there were both positives and negatives.

Even the hall used for congress got mixed reviews. It accommodated everyone but video technology was needed to compensate for the depth and narrowness of the venue.

To an extent both of the presidential candidates suffered from the scheduling. In his extempore victory speech Nickey Brennan made a couple of references to how shattering the whole day had been and, even for someone who had won All-Irelands on the field below, the most stressful he had known at Croke Park.

So we can only imagine how it felt for Christy Cooney, as he sat at the end of the Cork delegation's table listening to the result. It was remarked afterwards that rarely could two candidates have completed a presidential campaign so convinced that they would win.

But for both, and for any future presidential hopefuls, there has to be a better way of conducting the election. It was scheduled for four o'clock in the afternoon and slightly delayed because of the Rule 42 voting, but the whole business dragged on for a further hour by the time the result was announced.

In future it might be more humane to run the election before lunch so the candidates and supporters can recover their composure by the afternoon and that the later session won't be overshadowed by the vote.

It was an excellent congress for president Seán Kelly, who has been a controversial figure in the Rule 42 debate. His long-held conviction that the ban on soccer and rugby using Croke Park must be amended was brought to realisation after a rough two years in which he has been subjected to unparalleled levels of abuse directed at a president from within the organisation.

There was more to the weekend than that for Kelly. He conducted business very efficiently and the whole clár ran on time apart from the effects of overrun on the presidential election, despite which it concluded largely on time.

He also had the satisfaction of seeing two hugely important reports - on the splitting of the GAC and the establishment of new appeals and arbitration tribunals - accepted, noting that they were ultimately more important than the more publicised motions of the afternoon.

There was even the almost casual disclosure that the hurling development committee would meet the GAC to discuss immediately the best way forward for the National Hurling League, with a view to amending its operation by next year - a response to what has been a disastrous season of mismatches and merciless thrashings.

By the time the weekend was out, baleful confirmation of the problems came with Kilkenny's 30-point defeat of Wexford - in the "elite" top-six group in Division One.

But alongside all of these good things was further evidence that congress, as currently constituted, is an inadequate forum for debating and taking decisions on important issues. The Rule 42 discussion mightn't have featured much in the way of new argument but everyone had their own idea of where they stood on the issues. It also was given an hour and a half's running time, allowing virtually everyone who wanted to contribute to do so.

Obviously that sort of time couldn't be extended to all 51 motions but it was all too apparent during some of the debates that delegates were present in body only.

With the playing rules discussions being overshadowed by both the Croke Park debate and the presidential election, the level of ennui was perhaps predictable but it did the important subject matter no favours.

Maybe the environment for changing the playing rules had already been poisoned by the uproar in response to firmer disciplinary strictures but at least as influential was the lack of interest and engagement on the issues. When delegates aren't sufficiently stirred by debates their default setting is to vote against.

For instance, the debate on motion 18 featured a strong plea from Roscommon to introduce a mark, as in International Rules, to protect the traditional skill of high catching - "protect, develop and emphasise" - in the words of Tommy Kenoy.

This was a reasonable point and came not long after one of the conspicuous successes of the experimental rules, the pick-up off the ground, had been thrown out after a strong argument that the conventional lift was "a traditional and distinctive skill".

Nor one voice was raised against the Roscommon motion beyond Clare's Noel Walsh querying whether there was a minimum height required of the catch. Despite - or because of - this general lack of interest, the proposal was defeated.

Similarly, a motion on redefining the handpass as playing the ball away with the fist wasn't accepted despite a reasonable attempt at putting the argument in context with some statistics from this year's Sigerson Cup about the overwhelming preponderance of handpassing and its dubious validity. It wasn't an unanswerable case but more effort had gone into it than any of the attempted rebuttal.

Yet the most complicated subject matter of the afternoon concerned the splitting of the GAC and the setting-up of the appeals and arbitration tribunals.

These went through with only a handful of free thinkers voting against. This was largely because the work had already been done in selling and explaining the proposals. Had the delegates been asked to absorb the initiatives at one go there and then, there's no certainty anything would have been accepted.

It's time that debates on the playing rules were accorded the importance of special congresses rather than having their proposals - generally the result of painstaking work - zoomed through in the space of a couple of hours.

There also has to be more information circulated so that delegates can inform themselves and their counties of what is at stake in the lead-up to congress.

By way of symmetry, Nickey Brennan, the president-elect, has chaired the review committee that produced the 1997 report on the future of congress. It originated improvements such as the establishment of the work groups that occupy delegates on Friday afternoons.

While he's warming up over the next 12 months he might get time to take another look at the subject and improve things further.

smoran@irish-times.ie