Councillors Fail to Show Leadership – O’Leary

Councillors Fail to Show Leadership – O’Leary


Councillor Chris O’Leary has accused councillors other parties of failing to show leadership after a series of motions to reduce conference expenses and the Lord Mayors’ salary were voted down at the budget meeting last night.



Cllr O’Leary said:



“Councilors from Labour, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail last night repeatedly voted down motions which would have allocated money to areas such as housing maintenance, estate resurfacing and traffic-calming at the expense of payments to public representatives.”



“Sinn Féin motions that would have seen the Lord Mayors’ salary of €114,200 reduced to €35,000, a moratorium on conference expenses, and the €10,000 payments to chairs of SPCs abolished were all voted down.”



“Despite the fact that councillors from all parties lamented the absence of any provision for estate resurfacing in Cork City next year, they also rejected a motion from my colleague Cllr Thomas Gould which would have reallocated €60,000 from conference expenses – just €10,000 per ward – to deal with the worst cases.”



“This shows an appalling lack of leadership from elected representatives in Cork at a time of deep crisis and hardship for many ordinary households. The councillors have shown that given a straight choice, they prefer to maintain an exorbitant salary for the Lord Mayor, conference expenses and other perks of the job rather than put the money into basic services.”



“In particular, that the Labour Party voted en bloc against every motion to reduce conference expenses speaks volumes about how out of touch that party is with the hardships being experienced by working families in Cork.”



For further information or comment contact Cllr Chris O’Leary @ 087-2794307