Naas councillor defends his stance on sale of car park
Editor's Note: The current chairman refused to allow discussion on, or reading of, the above letter at the July meeting of the UDC, but Cllr O'Reilly took it on himself to reply as below.
NAAS, 31 July: by Brian Byrne. Naas UDC councillor Pat O'Reilly has defended his stance on the Baba Exports development on the Sallins Road, in particular the sale of the UDC car park to developer Tom Treacy. Cllr O'Reilly says it is a decision he 'did not make lightly'.
Editor's Note: Cllr O'Reilly also enclosed a letter to myself which related to the discussion on the car park, and to a letter I sent to the UDC about the attacks on journalists made by the councillor and others at the council's recent AGM. Because of the car park connection and comments made on it by the councillor, and in the interests of transparency and public interest, I reproduce the relevant correspondence below.
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Town Clerk
Naas UDC Naas, Co Kildare 10 July 2001 Dear Declan, I’m writing in connection with the stream of verbal attacks made on journalists at the recent AGM of the UDC by councillors and indeed by yourself. It was absolutely unfair that journalists in general were attacked, when it was possible that - to use your own phrase - only ‘some organs’ of the news media were the target. If this was indeed the case, effectively the attackers were slandering journalists present by being non-specific about both the news media concerned and the reports complained of. At the very least, a number of your council’s members should apologise in the same public forum to those members of the press not part of their complaints. Among the very serious charges made were that journalists covering the UDC affairs were ‘inaccurate and biased’. To the best of my knowledge, none of the press attending the council’s meetings were ever made aware of inaccuracies or bias by yourself as the town’s chief official, either verbally or by letter, on any particular story. It is normal policy in most news media to correct any mistakes or inaccuracies as soon as they are made aware of them. A specific charge made by the incoming chairman was that the local news media didn’t cover the signing of the £10.5 million housing contract at Caragh Road. As far as I can gather, local journalists were not informed of this event. And I am not aware of any press release or other information issued by yourself on the signing. It is very difficult to write about an event if there is no information or notification provided. There seemed to be an underlying concern on the day about journalists acquiring information other than that available in public discussions. I should point out that this is what journalists do, and we are not required to be - nor should we be - merely disseminators of official information. And in general terms, as most issues dealt with by your council are issues concerning the public of Naas, local journalists are only doing their job when they seek to find out all the facts about any particular matter. Indeed, if we get, from a number of sources around the council table, information about in-committee meetings, did the detractors of the journalists at the AGM then mean that the information given was not accurate? We appreciate that the UDC is understaffed at the moment, but it would also always make it easier if requests for information from the officials were responded to in a timely manner, as journalistic deadlines are inevitably much tighter than apparently are those for the activities of the UDC. Finally, it seems a very sad reflection on the relationship between the press and the UDC that no less than three successive chairmen have seen fit to verbally attack members of the press in the Council Chamber. To the best of my knowledge, this makes Naas UDC unique among local authorities in the county. I trust that this letter will be placed on the record in the council chamber. Yours faithfully, Brian Byrne Kilcullen, Co Kildare. (Note: I’m joint secretary, Mid-Leinster Branch, NUJ, but this is a personal letter on behalf of NUJ members who cover Naas UDC.) cc: all councillors. |
Editor's Note: The current chairman refused to allow discussion on, or reading of, the above letter at the July meeting of the UDC, but Cllr O'Reilly took it on himself to reply as below.
Editor's Note: As there are inaccuracies in Cllr O'Reilly's letter, I feel it important that the following portion of my reply goes into the public domain.
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Pat O'Reilly,
Naas UDC 30 July 2001 Dear Pat, I too have no wish to enter into 'long-winded debate', particularly when you saw fit to reply to a letter which was not directly addressed to you, but to the town clerk for inclusion in the public record of correspondence to your council (and not allowed to be so included by your chairman) as a response to public statements about journalists by the town clerk and councillors. So I make the following brief points: 1 My letter mentioned that the town clerk had never corrected or asked for a correction on any UDC story written by journalists. The only story which you decided to 'correct' in your letter was actually written subsequent to my letter. 2 You say that it was never stated that Mr Treacy paid £50,000 towards the development of the Friary Road car park. However, using your own figures, £50,000 is half of the £100,000 you say is the cost of that development, so my first figure is obviously correct. Then the estimated cost of the development (specifically excluding the purchase price) of Hederman's Yard was given last July by your own town engineer, Tom Cuddy, as £655,000. The £100,000 you mention has not appeared on any document issued to us, whereas the £655,000 has. If the cost has been reduced to less than a sixth of that estimated, I congratulate the council, but it still leaves my £50,000 figure as correct, and the £655,000 as the only issued official estimated figure for development. Which, by the way, was not 'leaked' to me, but provided by your officials. Yours faithfully, Brian Byrne Editor, KNN, Kilcullen, Co Kildare. |
©2001brianbyrne/knn