labour mayor to be investigated for 'disgraceful' comment

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Monday June 20, 2005 15:07

by Sean Dowling

Article from 'Irish Times' Monday June 20th 2005

The Mayor of Sligo and former Sligo/Leitrim TD, Declan Bree, is to face an internal party investigation following his criticism of two party councillors on Sligo Borough Council, who voted against plans to house Travellers.

The Mayor of Sligo and former Sligo/Leitrim TD, Declan Bree, is to face an internal party investigation following his criticism of two party councillors on Sligo Borough Council, who voted against plans to house Travellers.

Mr Bree was told last week that a complaints committee is now to be established to investigate the issue, on foot of a complaint by Peigin Doyle, secretary of Labour’s Sligo/Leitrim constituency organisation.

A list of 13 possible members of the complaints body including former Cabinet Minister Barry Desmond has been put forward from which five names will be drawn.

The committee can reject the complaint, suspend Mr Bree or expel him from membership of the party, or it can recommend that no further action be taken.

A complaints committee was established to investigate allegedly racist remarks made by former Lord Mayor of Cork Joe O’Callaghan, but he quit the party before it ruled.

The row began after Sligo Borough Council voted by seven votes to four on February 7th against the town’s draft Traveller accommodation programme. Two labour councillors, Veronica Cawley and Jim McGarry, voted with two Fine Gael councillors and three Fianna Fail councillors, while Mr Bree and three Sinn Fein council members voted in favour of it.

In an interview with the ‘Sligo Champion’, Mr Bree said: “The disgraceful decision to vote down the programme compels these Traveller families to continue living in appalling and intolerable conditions.

“How can anyone who claims to share the values of the Labour movement, or how can anyone with an ounce of compassion tolerate such a situation?”

The remarks made by Mr Bree, who was elected to the Dail in the 1997 election only to lose out five years later and who strongly opposed Mr Rabbitte’s coalition strategy during the party’s Tralee conference, have caused tensions within Labour’s Sligo organisation.

He was called on to apologise for his criticisms of Councillors Cawley and McGarry at a party meeting in late February, but he refused to do so.

*Article by Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent, published in today’s ‘Irish Times’ (20th June 2005. Page 5 ‘Withdrawal strengthens Rabbitte’)