High-profile referee David Gough says that as things stand he would not be willing to take charge of games until a vaccine for Covid-19 was available.
The GAA season has been put on hold by the pandemic but the Government road-map announced last Friday proposed that games could resume from 20 July - with limitations on the numbers of spectators and where social distancing can be maintained.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar suggested that that means there could yet be behind-closed-doors football and hurling Championships but players and officials alike are concerned at how that would work in what are amateur contact sports.
"It's my decision whether I go back. I'm a volunteer within the Association like everyone else," last year's All-Ireland football final ref Gough told 2fm's Game On.
"I'd have to sit down and have a long think about it. At the moment I would say no.
"I’d have to see what developments are made between now and July but certainly we’re not going to have a vaccine in place by July.
"With my own personal circumstances, at the moment I wouldn't be comfortable refereeing matches with no vaccine.
"I'll just speak for myself, I won’t say for other referees, but it’s going to be quite difficult for us getting back into inter-county setups definitely at that stage. Club games might be a little bit easier to deal with."
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The Meath man said that "there needs to be a serious amount of thought put in" to regulations around any return to play, and highlighted the difficulty of officials socially distancing when they are expected to travel to games together and share cramped dressing-rooms.
"My own circumstance, travelling from Dublin to Meath, picking up four umpires and putting them into a car, and then travelling around Meath for a Championship match might not be the most prudent way to start off refereeing again," said Gough.
"A lot of our umpires would be in the older age bracket and we need to be very careful about we're exposing these people to. I don’t know whether the Association is going to fork out for umpires to drive to the matches themselves if they can’t go safely in a car.
"There's no club that I’m aware of in Meath, except maybe Trim, that has a dressing-room big enough for adequate social distancing for referees and match officials. At inter-county level, even in Croke Park, it’s the same. There wouldn’t be room for eight match officials to be properly socially distanced.
Gough, who is one of 72 inter-county refs that will run 11.2km (the average distance run in a Championship match) to raise funds for Pieta House this Saturday, also observed that the role of Maor Uisce would have to be expanded as "we're going to need 15 water bottles minimum per team", that it would difficult to stop players spitting and that refereeing games in Ulster could cause problems if Northern Ireland is operating under different restrictions to the 26 counties.
