NAAS 22 January 2003: Naas Town Council members last night voted down two motions of no confidence in the mayor of the council, Cllr Timmy Conway. The motions had been brought by Cllrs Pat McCarthy and Mary Glennon.
There was a very heated discussion on the matter, while key officials of Kildare County Council looked on as they waited to make a scheduled presentation to the council. In the event, they had to sit there for over an hour.
Cllr McCarthy said he had tabled the motion because of what he claimed was 'partiality' and 'hostility to certain members' on the chairman's part during his management of meetings of the council in November.
He recalled as examples a number of remarks made by the mayor, in particular how he had referred to 'those people' - including Cllrs McCarthy and Glennon and Egan - as 'having a separate agenda' in comments to a visiting delegation from the Respond housing agency.
Cllr McCarthy said he never wanted again to go through a meeting handled like that particular one, and added that he held the mayor responsible for 'failing' in his responsibility as 'custodian of Standing Orders'.
Cllr McCarthy also said he 'will not be muzzled' in the council chamber.
Cllr Mary Glennon said she had been the 'butt of [the mayor's] bad manners' since she had arrived on the council, but it had become particularly bad since Cllr Conway had assumed the chair of the council. She said she had been regularly shouted down by Cllr Conway, and that his behaviour had been 'unbearable'. "You have brought the office of mayor into disrepute," she said.
Cllr Charlie Byrne, saying it was a 'sad night for the town' that things had come to this, and also noted that he himself 'had been hurt' by remarks made by certain councillors.
"I would not offend any councillor or official by telling them to 'f— off'," he said, and recalled that on the two terms when he had been chair of the council, he would never allow any member offend an official or fellow member.
Cllr Anthony Egan said that certain councillors were regularly 'berated' in the chamber, and said it was not the job of a chairman to decide on whether any motion 'was good or bad'. but rather to allow full and free discussion.
Cllr Pat O'Reilly said he hated to see a situation where councillors found it necessary to table motions such as this. But he said he could 'sympathise with and understand why' it had happened, though he didn't think the council 'should entertain' such motions. "The matter should have been dealt with in the Protocol Committee," he said, accepting that Cllr Conway had been 'a bit out of order' on the night in question. He appealed for 'compromise'.
Cllr Eibhlin Bracken wondered what people who read about the situation on the Internet, and in local papers, were thinking about Naas Town Council. "If we don't work together, we're really lost," she said.
Cllr Seamie Moore said the motions were 'very unhelpful' and spoke of how the mayor 'was held in very good esteem', a matter exemplified by the large number of groups and organisations of which Cllr Conway was a member. "You have even been chairman of Kildare County Council, and you wouldn't have held that position it you were not fair," he noted.
Cllr Willie Callaghan said he had 'pleaded on many occasions' for 'peace around the table' and he was now doing so again. He suggested that the mayor's behaviour at the meetings in question had been 'during a bad week' for Cllr Conway and his family, and he asked that 'personality problems' be sorted out, 'but not around this table'.
Cllr Conway agreed that he had been 'upset' on the night of the November meeting.
The vote was 5-4, with Cllrs Eibhlin Bracken, Seamie Moore, Willie Callaghan and Pat O'Reilly supporting the mayor's position against the motions.
