ban was Brian McCargo from Ardoyne, who played for Antrim county team before being obliged to quit in 1969 after joining the RUC Reserve, during a period after the abolition of the B Specials when some Catholic community leaders were encouraging Catholics to join the revised force. Sean McNulty from Warrenpoint won an All-Ireland minor medal in 1977 but joined the RUC in 1982. The Sports Council for Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland Department of Education made funding grants to GAA bodies while Rule 21 was in force, but at a lower level than would otherwise have been the case. Abolition During the Northern Ireland peace process, abolishing Rule 21 was advocated by unionists, political leaders in the Republic, and the Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland, whose report led to the replacement of the RUC by the PSNI. This was for two reasons: to boost nationalist trust of the police, and to improve unionist trust of the GAA. Nationalists were underrepresented in the RUC, contributing to a self-sustaining cycle of mistrust of it as unionist-biased; on the other hand, unionists saw Rule 21 as evidence of the GAA's support for republican violence. If the GAA ended its prohibition on membership, a reformed police force would be more likely to attract nationalist recruits. The prospect of unionist police officers joining the GAA was not a major consideration. Motions at the GAA congress to change a given rule can only be raised once every three years and require a two-thirds majority of delegates. Motion 43 submitted to the 1995 annual congress proposed to remove Rule 21, but was withdrawn before any debate. As a compromise for withdrawing motion 43, congress agreed that a special congress could be called in future purely to vote on Rule 21. Such a congress was held in the Burlington Hotel on 30 May 1998, shortly after the Good Friday Agreement. After a debate closed to the public, it rejected immediate abolition due to strong opposition from the Ulster Council, but resolved to remove it "when effective steps are taken to implement amended structures and policing arrangements envisaged in the British/Irish peace agreement". Another special congress in Citywest abolished it, on 17 November 2001, two weeks after the PSNI was established. Seán McCague, the GAA president, was personally in favour and all delegates from the Republic supported abolition; although only Down GAA of the six Northern