Republican News · Thursday 14 February 2002

Clonakilty cooption row

Clonakilty Sinn Féin Town Councillor and general election candidate, Cionnaith Ó Súilleabháin, has defended his decision to back the cooption of a Fianna Fáil replacement followiung the resignation of a Fine Gael councillor.

Rejecting the Fine Gael allegation of a Sinn Féin/Fianna Fáil coalition in Clonakilty Town Council,

At the council meeting on Tuesday, 5 February, Ó Súilleabháin supported the nomination of Joe "Jasper" Coleman of Fianna Fáil to the seat vacated by former Fine Gael Cllr Danny Lordan.

Fine Gael TD Jim O' Keeffe condemned the result of the co-option as "highway robbery of a seat that rightfully belonged to the Fine Gael party". Ó Súilleabháin rejected Fine Gael accusations of some sort of a pact or arrangement between himself and the Fianna Fáil councillors.

"I made my position on co-options well known to the council on the night, and on a previous occasion - just a year ago, following the death of the late Cllr. James P. O' Regan," he said. "That is:

"1. The most democratic way in my view to fill a vacant seat would be to have a by-election. That is perhaps not practical in a Town Council situation, but it does happen when there is a vacancy to a Dáil seat.

"2. The next most democratic option is to look at the results of the most recent election to that body, and the last eliminated candidate should be automatically co-opted. If he or she is unavailable or not interested, move to the second last eliminated candidate and so on. If this process is exhausted without filling the seat, then it is an open contest and the remaining eight councillors should decide by ballot.

"That is exactly what happened last Tuesday night on Clonakilty Town Council. There were three candidates nominated - Joe "Jasper" Coleman (FF), Jim L. O' Sullivan (FG), and my own party colleague, Paul Hayes. Of the three, Mr Coleman was the only one who actually contested the 1999 local election, and was the last eliminated candidate, missing the ninth seat by just four votes. When I saw him being proposed to fill the vacancy last week, I immediately withdrew the Sinn Féin candidate and voted for Mr. Coleman.

"In my view, the nine seats on Clonakilty Town Council belong to the electorate who go out every five years to elect councillors to sit on them. They do not belong to political parties, individuals, families, lobby groups, etc. The will of the people should take precedent at all times, and that is why I supported Mr. Coleman's nomination last week."

"If Ian Paisley of the DUP had been in Mr. Coleman's position, I would have voted in the exact same way and for the exact same reasons."