GAA won’t ease Covid-19 restrictions until its advisory group reports

The GAA will be making no accelerated moves towards easing current restrictions until its Covid-19 advisory group reports. The group is currently drawing up a roadmap to outline in the next couple of weeks the conditions for any possible return to activities.

Association director general Tom Ryan, in an interview on Twitter, said that the advisory group would also be helping them create the circumstances for opening club facilities and said that the Cúl Camps were still a possibility later in the summer.

“In most cases they’re (clubs) more than just football and hurling pitches. The committee rooms are used by all manner of organisations and the pitches are used by people for all manner of things whether it be for a walk or a puck around or whatever.

“That’s important and it’s important that we get back to using our facilities for those purposes as well but it has to be done in a controlled way and in a safe way.

“The overriding thing all the time is safety and that group is going to help us with regard to how we tackle that and how we might embark upon that and that very definitely will be part of the roadmap we map out for the association and the clubs over the next few weeks.”

Ryan was asked about the possible return of the Kellogg’s Cúl Camps, which he described in this year’s annual report as “the biggest child sport promotion in the world” and which last year they attracted nearly 156,175 children between the ages of six and 13 to 1,250 centres around the country.

“Personally, I hope so. It is fair and honest to say that we have contingency plans around them as well because we’re in a very uncertain environment at the moment.

“If we get a chance at all and the authorities tell us that it is safe to go ahead we will be ready to do them. Quite apart from the senior championships the Cúl Camps are a huge element of everybody’s summer in Ireland.

“It would be lovely to think that we could get them undertaken and we’ll make every effort to make sure we can but it’s only honest to say that we’re working on a few contingency plans well.”