No Left Alliance on Sligo Borough Council as Lab opt for FG & FF

sligo | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Monday June 15, 2009 19:52 by Ray

Labour Councillor Jim Mc Garry has been elected as Mayor of Sligo at the Council AGM this afternoon. The voting alliance between Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour which elected Cllr Mc Garry was harsly criticised at this afternoon’s meeting of Sligo Borough Council. After all the speculation, there will be no left-wing alliance on the Council, despite the fact that seven of the 12 councillors elected onto the new council are from left-wing parties.

The Labour, FF and FG pact defeated the only other candidate Sinn Fein’s Chris Mc Manus by eight votes to four, while Fianna Fail Councillor Jude Devins was elected as Deputy Mayor defeating Independent Socialist Councillor Declan Bree by eight votes to four also.

With seven Left leaning councillors elected --three Sinn Fein, three Labour and one Independent Socialist --the genesis of an historic alliance was on the cards last week. Sinn Fein's Cllr. Sean MacManus said "It is a unique situation that Left thinking parties now have an opportunity to control the council, and it would make sense to work together to push forward an agenda representative of the wishes of working-class people who make up the bulk of our support".

Cllr. Bree, who was in the strong position of knowing that none of the possible alliances could reach the crucial seven votes without his involvement, favoured the Left wing option. In making contact with Sinn Fein and Labour late last week, he pointed out that it was now possible for the Left thinking parties to form what he called a Civic Charter, an imaginative plan of action for the running of the local authority over the new term.

Speaking to the Sligo Champion Newspaper last week Cllr. Bree said: “There is now a challenge and indeed an opportunity for those of us on Sligo Borough Council who claim to represent the socialist and social democratic traditions. If we can work together in a spirit of trust and co-operation I believe that we can take decisive action in improving the quality of life and the quality of local democracy in Sligo. “For decades the Borough Council has been controlled by parties of the right. Now that the tide has changed in Sligo I believe that we have an obligation to the electorate to ensure that the new Council will take imaginative action to plan and manage local services and to put local people at the heart of local democracy. “I would hope that those of us on the left could agree a plan of action and a Civic Charter that can be endorsed by the people of this community. I certainly will be contacting the whips of each party on the matter and hopefully agreement can be reached before Monday’s first meeting of the new Council.”

Although Labour's Cllr. Veronica Cawley acknowledging that a Left alliance would be an historic breakthrough for Sligo, it is now clear that the oppertunity has been lost on Sligo Borough Council for a progressive pact of the left for the first time.