A challenge to the accuracy of minutes of the September meeting of Meath County Council by Aontu Councillor Emer Toibin led to a dispute and a walkout at the council’s October meeting. The councillor claimed the minutes of the September meeting did not reflect a true account of that meeting. At that meeting she had tabled a motion in relation to parking bays and asked for a countywide audit to be carried out on the number of public bays.
In challenging the minutes of the meeting she questioned why the minutes had not mentioned that her motion had been agreed by the councillors but that Cathaoirleach Cllr Sarah Reilly had allowed another speaker – a council official – to come back into the debate. She said this allowed an amendment to her motion being allowed and voted on .She claimed that this was contrary to normal procedure.
She asked where in standing orders did it state that a motion remained open even after the Cathaoirleach and councillors had indicated agreement of her motion. The meetings administrator Elaine Daly said that the matter had been dealt with in accordance with standing orders and that the minutes reflected what had taken place at the September meeting.
Cllr Toibin, who was attending the October meeting remotely, replied that the minutes made no reference to the motion being called or that the members had agreed to the motion. She did not think it appropriate “to skip through this” as if it didn’t happen. She said the minutes were not accurate and asked for them to be amended. She believed an honest mistake had been made in allowing a council official to come back into the debate.
Ms Daly said that any particular matter was not dealt with until they moved on to the next item on the agenda. If there was a dispute about the minutes the correct procedure was that it went to the members in attendance to decide if the minutes were accurate or not. Against Cllr Toibin’s objections, a vote on the minutes was called by the Cathaoirleach and it resulted 20 in favour of the minutes, with six against and nine abstentions, with five councillors absent.
Her fellow councillor Cllr David Boyne walked out of the meeting in protest, as did Independent Cllr Yvonne Everard. Cllr Toibin said that what had happened in the chamber at the October meeting should concern every member of the public. She described what had happened as “a dark day in the Meath County Council chamber”.
She said that her original motion about disabled parking had been tabled after a number of local residents had contacted her to say they had found parking as a disabled driver “increasingly difficult”. The council had responded by stating that it did not have the resources or staff to carry out the audit on disabled parking.
