June 21: Derived entitlement is ill informed

I refer to your article on June 11 in which councillor Maurice Quinlivan insinuated that the appointment of councillor Michael Hourigan to the Moyross Community Enterprise Centre was undemocratic.

How many votes any single councillor received is both immaterial and irrelevant. Every councillor elected carries the same mandate regardless of the number of votes they received or in which count they were elected.

Some districts elected six councillors, others elected eight. Some parties chose to select single candidates to maximise their publicity in local media, others chose to select a team in each district to maximise their party’s councillor representation.

This election saw Fianna Fáil returning 13 candidates (32.5% of all council seats) and Fine Gael returning 12 candidates (30%). As these two parties occupy in excess of three fifths of all council seats, it is clear that the majority of the electorate have mandated Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to lead Limerick City and County for the next five years and not Sinn Féin who only occupy 6 (15%) of all council seats.

Limerick Council decides democratically at all times, with a majority vote of democratically elected councillors.

Any imagined sense of voter number derived entitlement by individual councillors is ill-informed and misguided. Such grandstanding was also evident in Maurice Quinlivan’s recent expressions and expectations of being the first mayor of the Metropolitan District of Limerick City. This can only be interpreted as a selfish sense of perceived superiority or self promotion.

Maurice Quinlivan’s unjustifiable claims show scant respect to the voters of Limerick city and county, as his focus seems to be on a small subset of voters rather than on the entirety of the electorate which the 40 newly elected councillors represent. All positions were filled by his councillor peers in a democratic fashion, by a majority vote, overseen by both the County Secretary, Mr. Eugene Griffin and C.E.O., Mr Conn Murray.

The agreed d’Hondt grouping system was applied to many other committees and positions to allow parties with a smaller number of councillors, including Sinn Fein, be represented.

Maurice Quinlivan’s comments, attitude and unfounded expectations are not at all helpful so early into the council term. It sets the bar rather low for his future contribution. The voters of Limerick expect better.

david A O’Sullivan

Director of Fianna Fáil

for Limerick City