THE VICE CHAIR of the Oireachtas Committee on Sport has called on the GAA to get “stuck in” and stick to its 2027 timeline for integration with the Camogie Association and Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA).

Speaking on The 42FM podcast, Senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn said it was “worrying” to hear reports that integration could be delayed until 2034 and added that an “enormous opportunity to grow” would be missed.

File image of Senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn. INPHO / Tommy Dickson INPHO / Tommy Dickson / Tommy Dickson

In 2024, the Steering Group on Integration revealed 2027 as the proposed date for full integration between the three organisations.

Post-integration, all the three associations will all come under the GAA and a single membership structure will apply to all members.

However, minutes from a December meeting of the GAA’s Management Committee states that the “consensus” was that “2027 represents an unrealistic target for full and complete integration”.

The minutes added that a “phased implementation would represent a more measured approach in order to better manage any risks and accommodate any reasonable reservations”.

The minutes also noted that chair of the Steering Group on Integration, former president Mary McAleese, “rejected” the view that integration was not a realistic target for 2027.

Two days prior to this meeting, McAleese told an Oireachtas Committee on Sport that 2027 remains the target date for integration.

Chairperson of the Steering Group on Integration, Mary McAleese, at Croke Park in 2024. Morgan Treacy / INPHO Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO

Ní Chuilinn told The 42FM podcast: “Just get stuck in, deliver the timeline, because they haven’t come out and said their policy has changed.

“Minutes of a meeting in December last year, do not a policy shift make.”

She also expressed “frustration” that the Oireachtas Committee meeting on integration took place on the “sixth time of asking and a week later they drop this bombshell that it’s not feasible”.

“It took us so long to get that meeting in the diary,” said Ní Chuilinn, “and within a week, everything that was said looked like it had been rubbished by the Management Committee.”

Ní Chuilinn also hit out at remarks from the incoming GAA president Derek Kent, who will take over from current president Jarlath Burns next year.

Kent last month suggested that the move could be delayed until 2034.

Derek Kent (file photo). Leah Scholes / INPHO Leah Scholes / INPHO / INPHO

The GAA will celebrate its 150^th anniversary in 2034 and Kent last month remarked that he doesn’t “see integration really coming any sooner than our 150th anniversary”.

He added that 2034 is a “symbolic target” and that it could take up to a decade for a “certain amount of stability among all the units and to create something that will last”.

Ní Chuilinn remarked that the 2034 date “is worrying because it was just thrown out there out of the blue”.

“2034 is a long time away and think about those eight years, imagine if we just got it done now in 2027 and then we got to 2034 and looked back and thought, ‘remember when we thought we couldn’t do this, and look how far we’ve come’.”

The last update from the Steering Committee for Integration came in September 2025, and it said that “exemplary work” was being carried out “to lead us forward with this process”.

Elsewhere, Ní Chuilinn criticised the lack of communication on the “roadshows” which have been held where people can learn more about integration timelines and structures and ask questions about the process.

A roadshow is being held in each province, the first being a Leinster one in Croke Park which was held last month.

The Ulster one was held in Co Tyrone last week, and the Munster event took place in Supervalu Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork on Tuesday. Although it’s been reported that just 70 people attended, there was a more significant take up of the online option.

A Connacht roadshow will be held at the Landmark Hotel in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim on 19 March.

“I don’t know how well these roadshows were advertised, or even just highlighted as an invite to clubs,” said Ní Chuilinn.

Meanwhile, Ní Chuilinn called on current GAA president Jarlath Burns to remain on the Steering Group on Integration committee when his term as president comes to an end.

File image of GAA president Jarlath Burns Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

“Why would you jump out of the steering group halfway through the workload?” asked Ní Chuilinn.

“It just doesn’t make sense for somebody else to jump in.

“Yes, we get a new president of the GAA, then add him in.”

Ní Chuilinn said she asked Burns to remain as part of the steering group and that he “was open to it but that it depends on the rules”.

You can listen to The 42FM podcast with Senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn here.