Former GAA President Liam O'Neill said "better choices" needed to be made regarding the screening of live championship games on free-to-air television amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the GAAGO pay-per-view platform.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin said on Monday that the decision to broadcast championship games on a pay-per-view basis should be reviewed, saying that all GAA games should be shown free-for-air.
Minister Martin had been asked to comment on the fact that the weekend's Munster SHC game between Cork and Tipperary was shown on GAAGO, a joint venture between the GAA and RTÉ. The previous Saturday, the streaming platform had also broadcast the Limerick-Clare Munster SHC game, in which the All-Ireland champions were defeated.
The GAA's five-year broadcast rights deal, announced last October, saw RTÉ retain 31 live championship matches, while GAAGO was granted exclusive rights to 38 games: 22 football championship games, nine from the hurling championship and seven Tailteann Cup games.
O'Neill, who served as GAA President from 2012 to 2015, during which GAAGO was launched and the association signed its first broadcasting rights deal with Sky Sports, said "better choices" needed to be made around coverage.
"It's very easy to say that all games should be free-to-air," O'Neill said on RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland.
"We have 15 games next weekend. No television station could cover all those. And indeed, not every game is probably worthy of being put on national television.
"GAAGO was first introduced along with the Sky deal a number of years ago. I was part of that decision. It was for overseas people who wanted to access the games and it worked very well.
"It was a pay-per-view situation, as it is now. But there was no great controversy because it was people outside Ireland who were paying it.
"The GAA decides which broadcasters get games, it's the broadcaster that decides which games are put on.
"The solution is simple. RTÉ prioritise the games as they come and do not leave out important hurling games out of the schedule. GAAGO will work really well if the important games are given priority (on RTÉ) and GAAGO broadcast the games that wouldn't otherwise get coverage if it wasn't there.
"If I was in RTÉ and the GAA, I would look at the schedule now and make sure this doesn't happen again. You have to learn from your mistakes. I'm not putting blame here, I'm just saying mistakes were made. We lost two great hurling games and we can't afford to do that again."
While the early weeks of the championship has seen a large number of high profile hurling games screened on the platform, in a fortnight's time this switches to football.
On the opening weekend of the All-Ireland group phase on Saturday 20 May, the Kerry-Mayo match from Fitzgerald Stadium and the Galway-Tyrone game from Pearse Stadium will be shown on GAAGO. The same weekend, RTÉ will screen a Munster hurling double-header involving Tipperary-Limerick and Clare-Cork on Sunday 21 May.
"They shouldn't be behind the paywall," O'Neill said of the upcoming games. "But - and I'm speaking in favour of RTÉ here - you can't cover every game.
"Years ago, we didn't have games on television and this controversy wasn't there. Now it's there because we have the choice and choices have to be made.
"And I think better choices have to be made and I think in view of this controversy, better choices will be made.
"Streaming is good if you have good broadband. Unfortunately, the Tánaiste didn't mention this, I live in rural Ireland and we have very poor internet coverage. That was a factor at the weekend too.
"We were watching the dots going around in the middle of the screen and it just wasn't good enough."
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