This article is from page 11 of the 2012-07-31 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 11 JPG
THE summer sun finally reached the Banner county on Friday, but the heat from the long-awaited sunshine paled to insignificance next to the heat in the council chamber.
Members of Clare County Council had gathered to discuss the withholding of funds from the General Purpose Grant Allocation of the Local Government Fund for 2012.
While council were already irritated by the fact that Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan, had with-held € 243,000 from the third quarterly payment to the council, it was a letter of apology from Clare TD Michael McNamara (Lab) that he could not attend that caused the greatest uproar.
Cllr Cathal Crowe (FF) was critical of the letter claiming that it was “pedantic and arrogant”.
“There is no explanation as to why he can’t be here,” he said.
Cllr Patricia McCarthy (Ind) took exception to what the youngest member of the council said.
“Do not forget who invited in the troika. Do not forget the people who had to pick up the pieces of this country in the last few years, and do not forget now who are suffering for what was done,” she said. “So be mindful when you are casting aspersions across the chamber at people who are not here and who outlined the situation as it is.”
Cllr Crowe then shouted across the chamber, claiming Deputy McNamara was a party colleague of the independent councillor.
“No, he is not a party colleague of mine. This is where you are going wrong, Cllr Cathal Crowe,” said Cllr McCarthy.
“You wear a red rose when it suits you,” he interjected.
Mayor Pat Daly attempted to bring the meeting to order as Cllr McCarthy clarified, “I am not a member of the Labour Party, I have not been a member of the Labour Party since 1986. I support a certain deputy in this county,” she said.
In the course of a loud and heated “discussion”, Cllr Crowe said he found elements of Cllr McCarthy’s argument “hard to believe”.
She in turn asked for an apology for insinuating she was lying.
“I did not call her a liar,” he replied.
He concluded that he believed he was within his rights to condemn Deputy McNamara’s “arrogance” and said he did not think he was alone in that.
Deputy McNamara told The Clare People that in his letter he outlined his stance on the issue as he could not be in attendance.
He said he, like all of the Government and the Seanad, voted for the charge as it was outlined in the IMF bail-out document, a document he added to his letter so as to be helpful and support his point.
“It was pointing out the realities. You can’t have councillors speaking out of both sides of their mouths, saying no funds for local government and then not supporting raising the funds.”
During the meeting, the County Manager Tom Coughlan was also less than impressed when it was implied that the executive had been dragging its heels when it came to paying the charge at the council offices.
Cllr Joe Arkins (FG) said that in the run up to the original deadline for the payment, there were issues with council officials stating that they could not take postal payments and later letters without stamps.
“I don’t think they were overly helpful in assisting the Local Government Management Agency. We were behaving like an organisation scorned. I don’t think we had our shoulder to the wheel,” he said.
Jumping to the defence of his employees, Mr Coughlan said they had made every effort to facilitate the payment of the charge, so much so that Clare had one of the highest compliance rates in the country.
After almost an hour of councillors airing their grievances on the issue, West Clare County Councillor Pat Keane (FF) left the council chamber in anger. The councillor was frustrated at the way the meeting was progressing, with some councillors getting to speak on a number of occasions while others, he felt, were over looked.
Later in the meeting, Mayor Daly apologised to Cllr Keane, stating that he was up to speak at that point but was no longer in the chamber.