Report Paul Murphy
Independent Councillor Brian Fitzgerald staged a walkout protest at a meeting of Meath County Council in a row over the removal of a notice of motion on the rezoning of land in the pending new Meath county development plan from the council agenda. As the monthly meeting got under way Cllr Fitzgerald addressed the meeting, saying that he wanted to state how annoyed he was at “the total lack of respect shown to councillors particularly when the issue was about their reserved function in the county development plan”.
He said the removal of the notice of motion was “totally unacceptable to me and all the other councillors. Over his years on the council he had served under up to 10 county managers and chief executives and “never, ever were we questioned on a reserved function and I am absolutely disgusted and I am leaving this meeting because I have more respect for my councillors”.
CEO Kieran Kehoe
Before walking out the councillor handed a requisition signed by five councillors for the holding of a special meeting on the issue next Monday. After the cllr had left the meeting Council Chief Executive Kieran Kehoe said he had received a notice of motion from the independent group of councillors and he had met Cllr Fitzgerald as an individual to go through the terms of the notice of motion. He said that he was extremely disappointed that offence had been taken by Cllr Fitzgerald. “We received a notice of motion from the independent group. ”
”As a courtesy I met Cllr Fitzgerald to go through what was the intention behind the motion. I explained that we would be carrying out a variation but you cannot use a notice of motion to carry out the functions of the planning and development act. That is very clear, very straightforward. What you can do is ask me to consider to prepare a draft report to be presented to you within four weeks.
I felt there was no need to do that because we are actually in the process of preparing a report and there is a special meeting in the first week of December. We have taken on board the ask from Cllr Fitzgerald and the other councillors to widen the consideration of lands that were dezoned under previous development plans under the variation. And we agreed that is what we are doing. And that will be presented to you in a workshop in a few weeks. I am very disappointed that he felt he had to take this route. In all my career I have fully listened and responded to the wishes of the members”.
Cllr. Nick Killian voiced his concerns later at the meeting.
Addressing the chief executive Independent Cllr Nick Killian said that they were very annoyed about removal of the motion. “I know that you are entitled to your view but as councillors I think we are entitled to our view and that was put forward in a letter given to you today. On the first slide shown to us today it says that Meath has enough land zoned . An outsider, the public, might say ‘what the hell are they on about?’. ”We have got to understand that we have zoned land but I know land around the county that has been zoned for donkeys years and has never been developed and probably never will be developed”. ” There were pressure points where people wanted to live – Navan, Dunboyne, Dunshaughlin, Enfield, Kilcock and the environs of Drogheda. Recent articles in the Irish Independent and the Sunday Business Post had outlined that fact. Yes, we have land zoned but we don’t have it in the right place”.
Cllr. Sean Drew also voiced his opinions and is seeking a special meeting to be held shortly.
Fianna Fail Cllr Sean Drew said he had included his name on a list of cllrs seeking a special meeting because he felt it would have been better to have the notice of motion referred to by Cllr Fitzgerald on the agenda to be properly discussed and advised as to whether there was a legal grounds that they were not complying with legislation, and that that would be explained to them (cllrs) as to why that was the case.
Cllrs had looked at a particular sentence jumping at them as to where the focus of house building in the county would be and there was no consultation. He disagreed with the direction of focus outlined by the chief executive over the next few years. He did not agree with zoning large portions of land because a developer would build on them on a phased basis. They were not all going to be built on the one go. We did not agree with enriching just a few landowners – developments should take place all over the county.
