A proposed meeting of all 29 IFA county chairmen scheduled for Sunday evening has been cancelled. The meeting was scheduled to take place on the evening of Sunday 6 December in the Keadeen Hotel Newbridge, Co Kildare.

County chairmen do not normally meet as a group outside of executive council, but these are not normal times. It is understood the idea was to discuss where the association should look to for leadership at this time. Motions of non-confidence have been forwarded against various members of the executive board from at least seven counties. Some, like Galway, specified that those who received the letters from Con Lucey in August 2014 should resign, with others calling for the resignation of the entire executive board.

The executive board is currently six-strong, with acting president Tim O’Leary, treasurer Jer Bergin, and the four regional vice-presidents, Tom Turley, Bert Stewart, James Murphy, and James McCarthy. McCarthy’s home county of Kerry has a motion in calling for the resignation of Tim O’Leary alone.

While there are genuine concerns at all levels of the IFA about what is best to do next an election is now pending following the resignation of Eddie Downey. There are a lot of politics and positioning in play.

Tim O'Leary has declared his interest in becoming president, and Jer Bergin has confirmed that he will not be contesting any upcoming election.

Nominations for the presidency opened last Friday. To date, no-one else has entered the race, although Tim Cullinan from Tipperary is reported to be giving consideration to running, and Laoisman Henry Burns is a likely contender now Bergin has clarified his position. There is likely to be a candidate from the west of Ireland, from where all the resignation calls are currently hailing.

The two most likely candidates are Tom Turley, who has never made any secret of his long-term ambition to be president, and possibly Barry Donnelly. While Donnelly has had a low profile of late, he is on the pivotal rules and privileges committee, which this week agreed proposals to amend rules allowing the election to be held off until the spring, instead of the 60 days currently stipulated for. This needs approval of the council when they next officially meet on 15 December.

If the proposed meeting was organised by any presidential hopeful to increase momentum for further resignations, it may have come too late. The anger that was widespread last weekend is still evident, but the balance of opinion has shifted toward leaving the current officers in place and allowing Con Lucey to complete his report and make his findings known before any further action is taken. The deadline for submissions to Con Lucey is tomorrow, Monday 7 December.

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