Professor Mary McAleese:

That is a very interesting question. In response, we would say that integration is not and never has been a top-down idea but, rather, a bottom-up one. We already have the one-club model leading the way in many ways. Right across at every level of the GAA, in a sense we have been moving towards integration and the gender balance and inclusion which will come from that because that is the wind at our back. That is the express will. The Senator mentioned the survey which gave us the insight into the level of support and desire for integration. We are not unaware that there are areas which will require very significant internal management and structure. At the end of the day there is only one message here, which is that integration is happening. We will expect all the levels of the organisation to tell us, as they have been doing over the 18 months we have been in discussions with them, how we can best help them to move forward with the integration process. Do we think the timeline is a reasonable one? Yes, we do. We have looked at the methodology and at how we can achieve what we hope to achieve over the coming three years.

At the end of the day there are historic elements to this. The Senator will have heard it said that the GAA is 140 years old this year, for example. The Camogie Association is 120 years old this year. The Ladies Gaelic Football Association is 50 years old this year. When we get to 2027, we will have reached the 180th anniversary of the birth of Michael Cusack, who was born in Black '47 in the middle of the Famine and in the middle of nowhere. What did he start with when he set up the GAA in 1884? He had plenty of problems, I am sure, with facilities, fixtures and finances but, in comparison, today we are looking at a well-to-do country with a growing population and a massive desire and need for good and healthy preoccupations of sport, which are offered daily by the GAA. Do we have a worry? No, we do not.