Wexford county board chairman Micheal Martin says the level of assaults on referees has reached "crisis point" in the GAA.
Gardai are investigating a second alleged assault on a match official at the weekend, with an incident at a junior A football championship game at home at Whiterock Hill, the home ground of St Joseph's in Wexford town, who were playing St Lady's Island.
Minister for State for Sport Jack Chambers has condemned the alleged incidents and has stated that Sport Ireland will meet with national sporting bodies in a bid to stamp out physical and verbal intimidation of match officials.
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"All our thoughts go to the referee first," said Martin, speaking on RTE Radio One. "Positive news is that there is no serious issue in terms of the referee, he is shaken obviously, but he is at home and is recovering.
"Only last Tuesday night we discussed it at a county committee meeting with our clubs, we've had the recruitment and retention of referees on the agenda of every meeting this year, and purposefully so.
"I think it is an issue, there's no shying away from it. It's an issue in our own county but also an issue across sport in Ireland, but certainly in the GAA, we've seen incidents in other counties as well.
"We have had a number of serious incidents, I would say, potentially less serious than what we're talking about today and they have been dealt with very severely by our disciplinary committee.
"But the fact that you have that to deal with in the first instance is very disappointing and it's one that we're constantly reminding clubs of.
"When Larry McCarthy became president I remember talking to him and saying the number one issue for the association at the moment is the recruitment and retention of referees.
"We in Wexford and in other counties, I've seen online promoting the recruitment of referees - we have dropped referees from upwards of 70 a number of years ago to just over 50.
"That has implications obviously for being able to run a Games programme. We have had a small number of games that haven't been able to go ahead.
"From talking to other county chairman, that is an issue across a number of different counties and across a number of different codes as well."
Martin believes the the incidents that continue to be highlighted are illustrative of an erosion of authority across society, and trickle down from elite sports.
He said: "There is an unacceptable level of questioning authority across society, in the GAA it's the challenging of referees - you see it in professional sport at elite sport and it trickles it's way down.
"I think we've reached crisis point in this at the moment and it's something all policy makers both from ourselves and county level, right through to national level in terms of the association, but also policy makers in sport are going to have to sit down again and see how we can address this.
"We can't pass the buck and say that Government can solve this but I would like to see the policy makers across sport and in the relevant departments sit down together and see how we can address this issue.
"It's incumbent on all of us to ensure we don't have an ongoing physical or verbal threat to referees."
Minister Chambers said that he is hopeful that action can now be taken to stamp out the kind of incidents that have occurred in recent weeks.
"I absolutely condemn the incidents against the two match officials in Wexford over the last couple of days, match officials are central to the functioning of the game in all sports," he said.
"I agree with his point that we have to escalate this and that's why I have asked Sport Ireland to engage with governing bodies of sport to have that discussion, I think we have to have that respect across all sports and any incident cannot be tolerated.
"We have had a number of incidents over the last few weeks that have shocked people and we have to ensure it is stamped out of our games."
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