Gender Quotas in Sports Administration. What next.

What is the world coming to?

In the last general election here in Ireland, someone in their wisdom decided that all parties who but candidates forward for election had to have 30% women across the country on their election ticket.

What nonsense.

When people are getting nominated to run for a position should it matter if they are male or female, so long as they are the best person for the position if they are successful.

For the next general or local election will we see other quotas come into place? What about a quota for gay and straight people. What about a quota for disabled and able bodied people. What about one for White and none white people. What about one for people born and reared here in Ireland and one for those that have moved here and become nationalised. What about one for people who are openly a religious person of whatever creed and one for people of no religion. The list of quotas that could be used could go on and on.

When standing for election surly the main thing is that they are the best person for the job and the gender, skin colour, sexual orientation of a person etc. should not come into the equation. It should be all about electing the right people for the job that has to be done.

Today we heard on National Radio, the Minister of State at the Department of Tourism and Sport Patrick O’Donovan said he would be in favour of gender quotas on committees of sporting bodies which receive state funding.

I don’t know Patrick O’Donovan but would love to know the thinking behind why he wants gender quotas on sporting bodies.

I would urge Minister O’Donovan to move out of his cosy office in Leinster House and have a real look at what is happening within the different sporting bodies.

Take the G.A.A. here in Waterford as an example. The County Board currently have two female officers on its executive.

Both are women that live, sleep and breathe G.A.A. The G.A.A. flows through their veins.

Emer Barry and Trish Walsh (junior) are women in their 40’s who have held different positions in the G.A.A. in the last twenty years or so at Club and at Board levels.

Trish is currently the secretary of the West Waterford G.A.A. Board. She was recently honoured for her outstanding work for making this year’s Féile Na Gael Competition in Waterford and Tipperary the success it was.

Emer Barry is the P.R.O. of the West Waterford G.A.A. Board. She was also involved in the Féile Committee for the 2016 competition where she filled the position of PRO. She is a former County Board PRO and is the current Development Officer for the Waterford County Board.

Both women have not being elected to the different positions they have held down the years because they are women or for the sake of it. Both needed the support of fellow officers and clubs to be elected who were in agreement that they were the best person for the jobs they would have sought.

And it is not just the men’s games in Waterford that have outstanding female officers.

Lisa Cronin is one of the longest serving officers on the Waterford Ladies Football County Board and is also very involved with different teams.

In Camogie Trish McCarthy was very involved in Camogie for a number of years with Cappoquin and Waterford and it would be hard to find someone more passionate about anything they got involved in that Trish.

Roisin Hartley served a stint as County PRO of the County Camogie Board and in that time she did outstanding work in promoting the game, actively advertising all that was happening within the county on Facebook and Twitter. While she no longer is involved at County level she still does outstanding work at club level with Gailltir.

And another female officer in the county is Ita Murphy who is the current Chairperson of the County Board and who does fantastic work within the game in the county.

Down the years at club and at Board na nÓg Levels I have worked with some very good female officers who did not get positions because they were female, but because they were good at what they done.

At Board na nÓg level names like Catherine Touhy, Bridget Mernin, Bridget Murray and Vera Cannell spring to mind straight away.

At Club level at adult and juvenile level I have worked alongside the likes of Sinead Condon, Catherine Barron and Marie Power who were all very good in the positions they took on.

I have also seen the fantastic work that the likes of Breda Cleary and Margaret Cunningham did at Cuman na mBunscoil level.

Some of those that I have mentioned are still actively involved and have no doubt that they will go on to bigger and better things, while others are no longer involved by choice but who could have gone on to hold higher positions that they held.

To me, gender quotas make as much sense in sport as they do in politics. It seems that someone along the line wants to justify the salaries they are on by introducing such silly quota rules.

If these same people want to propose something to help promote the inclusion of females in sport, why not look at female sports.

I am sure many people reading this have never heard of Mairead Daly.

For those that have not heard of her, Mairead is a member of the Offaly Ladies Football team.

Earlier this year she had an article published on the Waterford IT Website.

In it Mairead pointed out some things that some might find staggering.

In the article she pointed out that in 2015, Offaly and Limerick reached the Division Four National Ladies Football League Final.

She pointed out that both counties were given the option of playing the game at Parnell Park in Dublin and have the game shown on TV but would not have access to dressing room facilities at the North Dublin venue, or to play the game at another venue with Dressing Room facilities but it would not be shown on TV.

The reason for not having dressing rooms available to the women’s teams at Parnell Park was down to the fact that the Under 21 All-Ireland Football Final between Tipperary and Tyrone would be played after the game, and with the numbers involved in panels and backroom teams in the men’s games on the increase each year the two men’s sides would take up two each of the four available taken up.

Both counties felt that they deserved to have their game shown on TV and was a great way of promoting the game, so opted to play the game at Parnell Park, without dressing room facilities.

Offaly made use of facilities at a nearby school to warm up for their game and to get kitted out, while Limerick used a club ground nearby.

Both sides no doubt would have felt nervous about playing in a National League Final and playing in front of the TV Cameras. But what nerves that the Offaly players were suffering when one of the players opened her kitbag and discovered that instead of packing her boots, she had put a hair straightener and hair dryer in her kitbag.

The Offaly side did a warm up wearing runners in a sports hall and once it was completed they made their way by bus to Parnell Park.

On arriving at the ground the players were shown to a packed function room which had a small bathroom which was used by the physios to give any player which needed it a pre-match rub down. Because the room was so small, players could not sit as they usually would instead for the team talk and some had to stand at the entrance to the toilets.

After the game Offaly were presented with the winner’s trophy before the two teams headed to their team bus and headed back to where they had togged out to shower and change back into their clothes. For Offaly the trip was a 15 minute spin from Parnell Park, which was not ideal as the players were drenched from head to toe as the weather on the day was very wet.

The players on both sides were made aware that because the weather was so wet on the day that they were lucky that they were allowed to play the game in an attempt to keep the pitch in as good as possible condition for the men’s game.

On the day, both sides made sacrifices. They knew the story with the dressing rooms before they arrived and the county board from both counties made the best possible calls before the game to get venues to tog out and warm up at before the game.

The reason they did so was because they felt they were giving their players the chance to play in front of the TV Cameras just like the players in the Division one, two and three finals. They made the decision so that they could promote the game by having it shown on TV.

Mairead Daly pointed out in her article that if a men’s team were to play a National Final and there was no dressing room facilities available to them there would be uproar. She pointed out that the story would have made national headlines and a solution would be found before the game.

She pointed out that inter county ladies footballers (and Camogie players) don’t train four or five nights a week for the majority of the year, stick to healthy eating and fitness regimes, and chose to train instead of going out with friends just to be denied access to onsite dressing rooms on the day of finals.

Instead of Politicians want to do anything for women involved in sport, why can’t they make the likes of the FAI, IRFU and the GAA amongst others to play ladies games on the same programme as men’s games and if they don’t to hold back money and not hold it back because they don’t have a quota of women on the different women involved in different committees.

The G.A.A. have a good chance each year to treat both men’s and women’s games equally. They have in the past played the League Division One hurling and Camogie Finals on the one day and at the one venue which is to be welcomed. But we could see some co-operation between the bodies.

Would it not be great to see the All-Ireland Senior Camogie Final played directly before the All-Ireland Hurling Final? Could we see the day when the All-Ireland Senior Ladies Football Final is played before the All-Ireland Football Finals? Maybe the G.A.A. would like to see the Minor Final to be the curtain raiser to the Senior final, and if they do could we see the Intermediate Ladies Football or Intermediate Camogie Final played before one All-Ireland Semi-finals and the senior finals before the second semi-finals.

I doubt not everyone will agree with what I have to say here. Maybe few will, but I for one will be hoping that Minister Patrick O’Donovan will forget what he purposed this morning on the radio, but if he wants to do something for women’s sports and for the women involved in sport, why not make the likes of the G.A.A., I.R.F.U. and the F.A.I amongst others be more active in promoting female sports, and ensure that the same facilities are available to men and women, that men and women’s games are played at the same venues on the same days, and to ensure that they get the same publicity as they give men’s games.