Claims integration will cost €500m 'nonsense'

Camogie Association president Brian Molloy says suggestions that the cost of integration into the GAA would be around the €500 million mark are "nonsense" and that the figure relates more to infrastructure upgrades that would still be needed regardless of whether the process goes ahead or not.

The year 2027 is the proposed date for the GAA, Ladies Gaelic Football Association and Camogie Association to integrate into one unified body.

GAA president Jarlath Burns suggested last week that it would cost his organisation "over half a billion" for "full integration".

However, speaking to RTÉ 2fm's Game On, Camogie chief Molloy said it was crucial that integration went ahead.

"It has to get done," he said, adding that he anticipates that integration will happen.

"There are undoubted challenges to the integration programme but the reality is that integration will create a better GAA by virtue of the inclusion of Ladies Football and Camogie within that new GAA.

"And it is going to be a new GAA but it is still going to be the GAA. So the decision that we made was that we wouldn't create a new association, we would keep the GAA and we'd bring Camogie and Ladies Football across into that new GAA. But there will have to be changes to the structure within the GAA to facilitate that.

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"I believe hugely in the importance of integration. I think it will be hugely beneficial to the men's game and to the women's game and to sport in Ireland as a whole. It will create an organisation second to none globally but I think we need to push forward and we need to make sure that it is actually delivered.

"And I know there's a lot of talk about the cost of integration and sometimes the cost of infrastructure is conflated with the cost of integration.

"Integration is not inventing women and it's not inventing camogie or ladies football. They exist and they play on those pitches and they play in and use those dressing rooms already.

"Those dressing rooms in a lot of those pitches do need to be upgraded but the cost of upgrading that infrastructure is not a cost of integration, it's a cost of upgrading infrastructure."

Molloy said it would be difficult to put a firm number on the cost but emphatically dismissed suggestions that the cost of integration would be around €500m.

"That's nonsense," he said of the figure, floated by Burns. "The €500 million figure is a number I'm not entirely sure where it came from but it relates to the overall cost of infrastructure upgrades - so in terms of making sure the dressing-rooms are fit for purpose and extra dressing-rooms being put on to stadiums and into facilities.

Brian Molloy after the Camogie Association Special Congress in May

"Those dressing rooms need to be upgraded and brought up to standard in any event whether we integrated or didn't integrate. So that's a cost of infrastructure and we absolutely need - and the three associations when combined into one - will need Government support in terms of bringing the infrastructure up to that level, that fit for purpose level. But that's not a cost of integration, that's a cost of modernisation, it's a cost of reflecting the increased number of people who are playing our sports."

Molloy also reflected on the debate around the skorts issue, which gained widespread attention earlier this year and ultimately led to a Special Congress vote that granted players the right to wear shorts if they so wish - a position the association's president had previously advocated for.

"It was definitely a challenging time, no question about it," he said.

"I think what people got a better understanding of over that period of time was just what a grassroots, volunteer-led, member-led association actually means.

"I think it became clear to people after a while that I might be president of the association but that doesn't mean I can just impose my will on the association.

"And I think once people got their head around that, to be honest, I got a lot of positive feedback after that and people realised, 'OK, so you have to hold Congress, you have to bring the members in, you have to get the delegates in to actually do the voting, you have to give the delegates the couple of weeks of time to engage with the members to make sure they reflect the views of the members at the end of the day'. And we did that and we got there.

"I expressed my view very clearly. Some people were surprised at how clearly I expressed it to the chairs and secretaries when I said my personal view was individual choice had to be given.

"But it wasn't my decision to impose that. I had to let them go talk to the members that they represented and bring those votes through and 98% was pretty overwhelming in the end.

"So I was happy we got there in the end and it was the right result."

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