FORMER Cork City Lord Mayor, Terry Shannon, has been criticised for describing left-wing members of the city council as “do-nothing councillors.”
Terry Shannon, pictured during his tenure as Lord Mayor
Mr Shannon, a Fianna Fáil councillor, claimed, in the midst of a heated debate about the city’s budget for 2017, that his party were the only ones capable of making difficult decisions.
AAA councillor, Fiona Ryan, called on the major parties in the chamber to refuse to pass a budget so as to send a message to central government.
Mr Shannon dismissed the claim, suggesting that AAA and Sinn Féin members have refused to act when called upon.
He described their opposition to the budget as a PR stunt.
He said: “Even when we were buoyant, Sinn Féin and the Socialist Party were in here voting against budgets, because they are the ‘do- nothing councillors’.
“For someone to get up and say that they’re not going to increase the rates, but we’re not going to have a cut in services, either, well what are they going to have, then?
“The ‘do-nothing councillors’ will do exactly that — nothing.”
Mr Shannon said the issue is evident throughout the Sinn Féin party, at all levels, including in Northern Ireland.
“We are infected with it in Cork, unfortunately: the do-nothing councillors, who will pontificate and look for facilities in their own areas, but will vote for nothing and will rely on the rest of us to do what we can in taking tough decisions.
“We will dig down into the figures and do our best to come up with proper options that will maintain services, but will be balanced.”
The claim did not go down well in the chamber, with independent councillors calling on Mr Shannon to retract his remark.
Togher-based Thomas Moloney described the comment as ‘shocking.’
“I don’t know who you are talking to,” he said.
“Every one of us, in here, breaks our backs for the communities we are working with, and to just throw out a comment like that, looking for soundbites, is horrendous. I would call on Cllr Shannon to withdraw it.”
Sinn Féin’s Stephen Cunningham said that Mr Shannon’s claim is “bizarre.”
“The idea that we should come in here, vote for a budget regardless of the cuts in it, is bizarre.
“To mistake having a backbone for a PR stunt is absolutely unbelievable.”
Independent councillor, Mick Finn, said: “As he always blows his own trumpet anyway, he must have been talking about himself when he referred to ‘do-nothing councillors’.”
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