Camogie heads may have to meet with Government over ‘ridiculous’ skort issue

The rule has been described as 'archaic'

The Camogie Association is under intense scrutiny following a protest at the Leinster semi-final, where Dublin and Kilkenny players arrived wearing shorts instead of the mandatory skorts last weekend.

The incident, which is now sparking a nationwide debate, nearly led to the cancellation of the match when the referee threatened to abandon the game, but the teams changed back into their skorts.

On Newstalk, Kelly revealed that he intends to meet with the Camogie Association if the issue is not sorted.

He said: “I intend to speak to my committee colleagues about inviting the Camogie Association to the Oireachtas Sports committee on this issue.

“We simply should not still be forcing women to wear skorts in this day and age."

He added: “I hope this gets sorted out pretty immediately because I was at two GAA clubs yesterday, two different events - this is the only thing they’re talking about.”

The Tipperary North TD has a 15-year-old daughter who is a passionate camogie player, and he feels that her and fellow competitors should be given a choice on wearing shorts.

He said: “I was collecting her from training yesterday, the guts of 26, 27 young ladies playing camogie, training hard and not one of them was wearing anything but shorts.”

The Camogie Association released a statement acknowledging this issue, and revealed that it voted to uphold the mandatory decision on skorts at their most recent Congress, and that players would have a chance to raise the issue in the future again.