GAA CONGRESS: GAA Correspondent Seán Moran on the Rule 42 debacle and other Congress issues

Four months after the admirable decisiveness shown by GAA president Seán McCague in shunting Rule 21 into oblivion, this weekend's Annual Congress in Dublin sees normal service being resumed. It wouldn't be unfair to characterise the state of affairs surrounding two of the three big issues as chaotic.

Even the third, this morning's presidential election which has to come to a conclusion today, has been a lacklustre contest marked by less than overwhelming enthusiasm for the four candidates.

Croke Park's accessibility to other sports is - like last year - the hot topic. Unlike last year when an animated debate culminated in a fractional rejection of the motion to modify Rule 42, there is no great air of expectation. Whatever the mode of dispatch, it is well known that the contentious provision will still be in the rulebook tomorrow.

Outsiders will struggle to understand what exactly the GAA is up to and so will the rest of us. In truth there's no simple explanation because there's ample evidence to suggest that the association itself doesn't really know what it's up to.

In the 12 months since last year's debate, there has been wild oscillation. After the initial prognosis that the rule would be gone within a year had faded, there was a reactionary backlash promised: everyone would be sorry that the media had been so unkind about the decision not to get rid of the rule.

This was strengthened after the Rule 21 Special Congress when there was a good deal of whingeing in some quarters about Rule 42 being "next" as part of some rampant liberal progression - ignoring that the latter was taking a parallel hammering rather than anything consequent on the removal of the ban on the security forces.

Before Christmas there were some strange happenings in Roscommon and Longford - counties that had supported change the previous spring. To the surprise of many in the county - not least Tom Kenoy, the leading advocate of reform - the Roscommon delegates made it clear they had changed their mind. In Longford it was all but blurted out that the GAA hierarchy had been anxious to damp down the issue for this year.

January ushered in the report of the Strategic Review Committee and its recommendation that the substance of last year's Roscommon motion - devolving authority for the use of Croke Park to Central Council - be adopted. SRC chairman Peter Quinn appeared on RTÉ's Questions and Answers and reminded the audience that he was in favour of Croke Park meeting some of its maintenance costs by allowing other sports to be played there - a kite he first flew at Congress two years ago.

A month later the most extraordinary of the events relating to Rule 42 took place when top GAA officials agreed to let Croke Park to be put forward as a potential venue for the European soccer championships in 2008 as part of the FAI-SFA joint bid. At the time the GAA actually gave nothing away beyond acknowledging that a motion on Rule 42 was tabled for the coming congress.

But the behind-the-scenes spin was emphatic: that soccer would be played in Croke Park was a matter of when rather than if.

Since then there has been drift back to the opposite view with some counties changing their mind, some dragging their heels, and others remaining firmly set in their ways.

What is going on? A host of reasons for the retention of Rule 42 has been advanced over the past year - none entirely convincing: planning permission problems with the local residents who are opposed to more matches at Croke Park (as if the residents can't see what's coming as soon as the redevelopment is finished); a reluctance to create further division so soon after the abolition of Rule 21 (that meeting, held in camera, we were told was happily devoid of rancour); the new pitch surface mightn't be able for it (it being two or three extra matches a year in a stadium otherwise empty for six months); that the PDs had annoyed everyone (as your mother used say, "if the PDs told you not to jump off a cliff ...").

That final point cropped up again last week. Former president Jack Boothman issued a De Profundis on the subject of retaining Rule 42. In it he lambasted "gombeen politicians" and their alleged interference in GAA affairs. He must have meant "gombeen politicians except from Fianna Fáil" because the GAA have been dancing to the current Government's tune on Stadium Ireland ever since the £60,000,000 wad was casually flung on the top table at last year's Congress.

THE GAA has been notoriously prickly about non-Fianna Fáil politicians floating ideas that involve Croke Park, even aside from the Tánaiste and the PDs. If Fine Gael's Jimmy Deenihan says he thinks that the GAA will permit other sports to be played on its premises, dive for the fall-out bunkers, but if the Taoiseach volunteers Croke Park for an international soccer tournament, shrug your shoulders and say "sure, you never know".

One of the few theories that comfortably accommodate the facts of the past 12 months is that the GAA are committed to doing everything possible to help get the Taoiseach's pet project up and running.

Keeping Croke Park shut a year ago boosted the case for Stadium Ireland, allowing Croke Park to be used to get the Euro 2008 bid over a deadline kept the seat warm for Stadium Ireland - after the PDs declared the project off-limits this side of an election - just as withdrawing that permission will demand that Stadium Ireland be remobilised to meet the final Euro 2008 deadline at the end of May.

By then the Government will in all likelihood be back in power. The PDs may make noises about persisting in their opposition to Stadium Ireland, but the fact is that the project will be on the table in any negotiations for government. And given the priority accorded it by the Taoiseach, Abbotstown won't be negotiable beyond financial undertakings and some reduction in scale.

Once that happens, Rule 42 may remain of enduring fascination to the GAA but won't much matter to anyone else.

For the moment we are left to ponder what the association really thinks about the issue. Does the rule remain because of a determined conservative rump? Who do we believe: the Peter Quinn who the Thursday before last told a Leinster counties' SRC briefing that now wasn't the time to play the Rule 42 card or the Peter Quinn who a week later said on RTÉ's Prime Time that he thought the rule should be relaxed? Is Seán McCague's view the one he explained to radio audiences in Northern Ireland a year ago - that he expected to see rugby played in Croke Park - or the one outlined last month on Tipp FM - that he wouldn't see any games other than Gaelic games played in Croke Park in his time?

One possible solution is that the matter be bounced on to the SRC Special Congress. But here too confusion reigns. Despite strongly backing an early date for that congress, McCague and director general Liam Mulvihill failed to persuade Central Council. Given that that body is about to be abolished as currently constituted by the SRC proposals, it was perhaps unwise to give them a say in the matter rather than going straight to Congress.

But it now appears that the rank and file are as happy to see the matter put back to the autumn and, tellingly, even advocates of an early special congress are now conceding that an autumn date wouldn't be the end of the world.

Of greater gravity is the uncertain state of attitudes towards the SRC recommendations. One member of the SRC, Connacht secretary John Prenty, has suggested that a more focused job may yet need to be done in relation to selling the report.

A number of its recommendations have radical implications for certain units of the GAA - Dublin and Central Council - and these have grabbed the headlines. But the vast preponderance of the proposals concern what Prenty calls "sensible housekeeping measures". The concern must be that the future of these may be jeopardised because of a combination of indifference to their low-key nature and hostility to the more controversial measures.

There should be little controversy about this morning's presidential election. It is expected that Seán Kelly will become Kerry's first president. Estimates vary between his coming in on the first count, or struggling a little if the contest goes beyond that. In a comparatively crowded field Kelly has his work cut out to win by a knockout but his candidacy looks likely to pick up preferences so he should still win out comfortably.

Kelly probably won't get all of the Munster votes even though Noel Walsh has withdrawn for the simple, if odd, reason that Munster never seems fully to back its own candidates - as Walsh himself and Mick Maher found out in recent times. He has done well, however, in Ulster and is expected to tie down the overseas vote.

He also has Kerry secretary Tony O'Keeffe - a popular and shrewd official - running his campaign and finally in the words of one observer: "Seán Kelly deserves it because no one has worked harder at getting it."

Voting on Rule 42 at GAA Congress last year.