Professor Mary McAleese:

Go raibh míle maith agat, a Chathaoirligh agus a dhaoine uaisle. Táimid thar a bheith sásta a bheith anseo, agus gabhaim míle buíochas as ucht an cuireadh. It is a great opportunity for us to update the committee and gather its support for what we and many people believe to be the most historic 21st century development in Gaelic games, namely, the planned integration of the Camogie Association, the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Ladies Gaelic Football Association. I am here as independent chair of the steering group on integration along with the other group members, namely, the newly minted uachtarán of the Camogie Association, Mr. Brian Molloy, the newly minted uachtarán of Cumann Lúthchleas Gael, Mr. Jarlath Burns, and Mr. Mícheál Naughton, president of the Ladies Gaelic Football Association. Accompanying us are the ard stiúrthóirí from each of the three associations, in the same order, Sinead McNulty, Tom Ryan and Helen O’Rourke. We also have with us the head of organisation change and project co-ordinator, Aoibhe Dunne.

It is important at the outset, to be clear, that our remit as the steering group on integration is that we are a recommending body. That is what we do - we make recommendations. Our role is to deliver a proposed pathway to one association for Gaelic games. That is the desire of the three organisations and the overwhelming desire of the almost 1 million members - there are well over 800,000, now shooting more towards 900,000 members - between the three associations. We hope and believe that after a broad and deep consultation, the distilled wisdom and plan that has come out of that consultation process will be widely supported and enthusiastically implemented by all stakeholders in the most transformative project undertaken by the three associations since they were formed.

As the committee is aware, the Camogie Association, Gaelic Athletic Association and the Ladies Gaelic Football Association are each overseen by individual governing bodies, with a congress and a central council. Each congress oversees its own rule changes and each central council is the governing body of the associations between congresses. Each has its own complex structure and culture. We are very aware that any proposed changes put forward by our integration committee with regard to our navigable pathway towards integration will have to be brought to and ratified by the governing bodies - the congress and ard comhairle - in advance of being implemented. With almost 1 million members between the three associations and thousands of clubs all over Ireland and abroad, I hope the committee understands that the integration project is complex. There are an awful lot of moving parts. I have met people who said they thought they could do it with a flick of a switch or a magic wand. Well, there is no switch or magic wand; there is just an awful lot of really hard work. We have our overall principles, strategy and a methodology. They have to be implemented now if we are to meet our target, as we believe we will, of 2027 for one Gaelic Athletic Association, to be called the Gaelic Athletic Association, for all Gaelic games, in which all members will have equality. We hope that the old Irish saying, "Ní neart go cur le chéile”, will reveal itself in a new way. I have often thought that those words are not easily understood as just that we are strong when we work together but, rather, that you do not really know your full strength or what you are capable of until you work together. When we get to that one association for all, which will be a great gift to Ireland and wherever Gaelic games are played, that gift will reveal huge new potential.

We are encouraged that the committee asked us to appear. We know members are all interested in our work, which gives us great reassurance because we need their help at national and local levels, where they also operate. They know better than anybody, at local level, what Gaelic games offer our country and the extraordinary web of work they are, the extraordinary web of entertainment they provide and the work that goes in on the back of that. They know we will need their help as political leaders locally and nationally to be able to deliver, with the resources we will need to make integration the best it can possibly be. They know better than most of us that Gaelic games, no matter what the game - rounders, handball, scór, which is not a game at all but a competition, football, ladies Gaelic football, camogie or hurling - provide enormous benefits locally, probably including in their own clubs and parishes, at county and provincial levels and right around the world. We are happy to take this opportunity to give the committee an update on where the integration process is at and tell members where we have come from. We look forward to answering any questions members may have. I am conscious that members would probably love to ask the three presidents questions on a range of other stuff, but we are here to talk about integration, as are the members of the committee.