Councillor leaves Naas TC meeting in tears
NAAS, 13 March 2002: by Brian Byrne. Cllr Mary Glennon was forced to leave Naas Town Council’s March meeting in tears after two other members continually harassed her and interrupted her during her right of reply to comments made on one of her motions.
The motion called for an assessment of the town’s twinning commitments, with a view to ‘ending those which are not viable’ and was up for discussion as three members and the town clerk were preparing to go to Omaha, Nebraska, to formalise a new twinning arrangement.
But after the usual round-table contributions, Cllrs Seamie Moore and Timmy Conway constantly heckled and interrupted Cllr Glennon during her final response.
Eventually, though chairman Willie Callaghan had asked repeatedly for order, and said that Cllr Glennon ‘had the floor’, she broke down under the harassment and left the chamber in tears.
“Bring a hanky with you!” Cllr Moore called out as she left, and then said that she was ‘like Brown’s dog, she can give it, but she can’t take it’. After she left, he said Cllr Glennon was ‘a total bully’ and ‘had made life unbearable for people around this table’.
The chairman then said that, ‘as Cllr Glennon has left, we will move on’.
It was the second major row of the evening. At the consideration of the minutes, Cllr Glennon recalled that Cllr Conway had repeatedly said she was ‘telling lies’ at the previous meeting, during a discussion on Oldtown Gardens (ED: see our report here). The fact that Cllr Conway had eventually withdrawn those remarks was not recorded in the minutes, though he noted that the Kildare Nationalist had said this in a ‘verbatim’ report.
Cllr Glennon said she wanted a retraction AND a formal apology from Cllr Conway for remarks which ‘had torn her reputation to shreds’, and said she would pursue the matter through the courts if necessary.
During subsequent heated exchanges, the chairman said he was ‘disappointed’ at Cllr Glennon’s attitude. Eventually, after having to adjourn the meeting for five minutes, Cllr Callaghan ruled that under standing orders he was supposed to accept a retraction and/or an apology, and he was ‘happy’ with the retraction and was ‘moving on’.
(ED: A full ‘blow-by-blow’ account of the proceedings can be read in next week’s Kildare Nationalist, on Trish Whelan’s Naas Page.)
©2002knn
Mary Glennon - left in tears.
Timmy Conway
Seamie Moore