Yes it did ! Criteria were highlighted that needed to be met. If you met those criteria you got a License, which apparently was required to play in the appropriate division that season. More explicitly, you needed a license to be our reps in Europe.
When the vast majority of clubs struggled to meet the criteria, we had a typical FAI fudge of changing the rules to suit the teams, not vice-versa. If it was a long term process and wasn't to have immediate effect, then why did the FAI feel the need to issue everyone with a license that season...?