Labour Party Election candidate critical of Pat Rabbitt's treatment of Cllr. Declan Bree

sligo | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Friday July 22, 2005 23:21 by R Ellis - LP

Letter published in this weeks Sligo Champion & Sligo Weekender by Labour Party Local Election candidate (1999 & 2004) and former Sligo/Leitrim Constituency PRO, Mr. tim mulcahy

http://www.labour.ie/timmulcahy/

Only ‘New Labour’ criticised Declan Bree

It is indeed ironic that at a time when politicians of all persuasion and members of the public and business community are congratulating and paying tribute to Declan Bree on his exceptional work for Sligo during his term as mayor, that the only group who criticised him and attempted to undermine his work as mayor was a particular group in the Labour Party.

The people of this community are proud of Declan Bree. He was a wonderful ambassador and he represented Sligo with great dignity and with great pride. As one councillor said at last week’s Corporation meeting "Declan Bree encapsulated everything a mayor should aspire to."
What was particularly noteworthy during the year was that Declan Bree did not allow the office of Mayor to be used or abused for party political purposes. He was not a ‘party’ mayor he was the people’s mayor.
During the year at the many events and engagements he spoke at he put forward the case for Sligo and for the people of Sligo without giving party political speeches.
Declan Bree has always taken an interest in protecting the rights of minorities, the marginalised and disadvantaged. When members of Sligo Borough Council voted down the Traveller Accommodation Programme in February, he was ‘terribly disappointed’ and described the decision as ‘disgraceful’.

He said ‘the decision effectively penalises local travellers and will force them to continue living in intolerable and unacceptable conditions.’ He also asked ‘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?’
In effect he exercised his right as mayor to express a legitimate point of view on the issue. Indeed Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, who both voted against the programme, recognised this right.

However a group in the Labour Party decided that the mayor of Sligo had no right. Not one of them had the courage to take the Mayor on publicly.

Of course Mayor Bree told them in no uncertain terms that he had no intention of apologising for his comments and he made it clear that he would not allow any individual or group to dictate to the mayor or undermine the office of mayor.

Incensed that he would not comply with their demands they complained to the leadership of the Labour Party. In any other socialist or social democratic party such a complaint would have been ‘binned’. But not in Pat Rabbitte’s ‘New Labour’ party.
Those in the leadership of New Labour have made it clear that they have no difficulty with councillors voting against traveller accommodation.

And they have also made it clear that any Labour Party member who objects to councillors voting against traveller accommodation can expect to face an internal disciplinary hearing and even be threatened with expulsion from the party
At one time I was proud to be a member of the Labour Party and to be its standard-bearer at local elections. However today’s Labour Party in its move to the centre right, has lost its soul and has lost its traditional socialist values.

The poor, the marginalised and the disadvantaged, particularly here in Sligo, appear now to have been abandoned.

tim mulcahy,
County Sligo



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