The High Court has granted three members of a university hurling club, including a Clare senior hurler, a temporary order restraining the GAA from holding a disciplinary hearing due to take place at Croke Park last night.
Dr Peter Tiernan, chairman, Brendan Bulger, secretary, and player Kieran Joyce of the University of Limerick's (UL) hurling club, yesterday secured an interim injunction restraining the GAA from holding a disciplinary meeting before the central hearing committee, which was due to take place at Croke Park, Dublin, at 7.30pm.
The outcome of that hearing could have resulted in 12-week suspensions from GAA activities being imposed on all the applicants. Mr Bulger from Whitegate, Co Clare, is a member of the county senior hurling team which is due to play Galway in the All Ireland hurling qualifiers next weekend.
The order was granted in the High Court on an ex-parte basis (one side only) by Mr Justice Vivian Lavan. He made the matter returnable to Monday of next week.
In an affidavit to the court, University of Limerick hurling club chairman Dr Tiernan said that all the applicants were each facing a 12-week suspension arising out of UL's game against Limerick Institute of Technology in the colleges intermediate hurling final in Kilmallock on March 29th last.
Before the game, the club had checked Joyce's eligibility with Croke Park and was advised that he could play in the game.
However, the information given to Croke Park was incomplete. Dr Tiernan said that Joyce had played in the Fitzgibbon Cup (third-level hurling's top-tier competition) on March 7th and this was not relayed to Croke Park.
As a result, on May 29th the GAA wrote to say that the hurler had played illegally and each of the defendants would be suspended for 12 weeks.
The club was also informed that it had the right of appeal by requesting a hearing before the hearing's committee, which it chose to exercise.