Red-faced Mayor bids to hold special meeting

Date Published: 14-Jul-2011

BY CIARAN TIERNEY

Embarrassed Mayor of Galway City, Hildegarde Naughton, is seeking to hold a special meeting of the City Council next week in order to reverse her own decision not to allow presidential hopeful Senator David Norris to address a meeting of the local authority.

Mayor Naughton (FG) wrote to the party whips on the Council this week in an attempt to hold a special meeting next Friday which would pave the way for Senator Norris to come to Galway to speak at the September meeting.

On Monday night, the new Mayor used her casting vote to prevent him from addressing the September meeting, after councillors tied 7-7 on the issue, with one abstention. Earlier, they had voted 10-5 to allow Special Olympics supremo Mary Davis to address the same meeting, leading to claims of homophobia in elements of the media.

Under the local authority’s own Standing Orders, the Council should not be allowed vote on the same issue within six months, which is why the Mayor has taken the unusual step of writing to all of the parties in a bid to organise a special meeting next Friday afternoon.

“I made a mistake on it,” she told the Galway City Tribune yesterday. “Certainly, as Mayor, I should have used my casting vote to allow Senator Norris to address the Chamber. It was a mistake and on reflection I admit that what I did was wrong. He should have every right to address the Council and I intend to give him the opportunity.”

To do so, Mayor Naughton needs the support of eight councillors in order to convene a meeting next week. She is likely to get sufficient support, despite strong criticism from her colleagues over her apparent change of heart.

“She was a disgrace and the result of the vote was disgraceful,” said Cllr Colette Connolly (Labour).

Cllr Padraig Conneely (FG) said : “She had her opportunity to vote twice on Monday night and to now do a u-turn on it would set a bad precedent on her part

Cllr Michael Crowe (FF), whose party voted against Senator Norris’ bid to address the Council: “We won’t be supporting her request and we have made our decision on it clear.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.