Vacant SDCC seat finally filled

The long-running mystery of who will fill the spare seat on South Dublin County Council has been filled.

As we reported in August, an unusual situation arose where independent councillor Paddy Holohan won a seat in June’s local elections in both Tallaght constituencies, Tallaght Central and Tallaght South.

Holohan opted to represent Tallaght South in South Dublin County Council, creating a vacancy in Tallaght Central.

Had Holohan won a seat as a member of an established party, traditional Irish political orthodoxy would have meant that the party simply would have nominated or co-opted a fellow party member but Holohan’s status as an independent made filling the seat something of a logistical nightmare.

In the end, Holohan picked Tallaght MMA coach Dean Donnelly to fill the seat and received the backing of South Dublin County Council members to fill the seat.

Holohan said, “there is no one with more integrity or more work ethic to fill the vacancy.”

“1800 people voted for me in that area, it will be said or made out to be that these people didn’t understand what was going on.”

He said that Donnelly “just does the work, and he just does it quietly,” and said he was best placed to fill the vacancy.

Discussing the unusual situation, he noted “if this was a party situation it would be a little bit different, but people are co-opted onto this council all the time and I don’t see why this has crept into a bigger situation than it actually is.”

Donnelly said “I have no political obligations to any party or anybody else but I am here for the people. If you give me the chance to learn, I will do the utmost to take in the information and help out the people who haven’t had a voice.”

However, opposition parties have cried foul of the process.

Solidarity/People Before Profit argued that the seat should have gone to former councillor Kieran Mahon who lost out in Tallaght Central in June.

Mahon lost his seat in June, but his party argued that by virtue of Mahon the candidate who received the most amount of votes but wasn’t elected, he should have been the one to fill the seat.

Mahon’s party colleague Jess Spear said “this vote is not about who fills this vacancy; I want to be clear this is nothing personal against councillor Holohan or his nominee. This vote is about whether people should be able to stand in more than one ward and appoint their nominee afterwards.”

“A vote for councillor Holohan’s nominee would encourage more candidates to do this. Nowhere on councillor’s Holohan’s leaflet that was delivered to Tallaght South or Tallaght Central makes it clear that he was running in both wards, nor that if he won both seats he would take the seat in Tallaght South and nominate Dean Donnelly in Tallaght Central.”

“What is on the leaflet is a statement that I fully agree with – “we need to create a political climate which is transparent” – we need more transparency and when people vote they should know what they are going to get.”

She said the process is the “most untransparent way to elect a representative.”

“Running in two different local areas and then nominating who fills the position is the opposite of direct democracy. It is many steps removed, in fact.”

“The people of Tallaght deserve a democratic and transparent outcome here,” she added.

Independent councillor Alan Edge said “I want to emphasise this is not about personalities and not about individual politics; what this is about today is that we are setting a precedent.”

“This is a novel situation; nobody has been elected to the final seat in Tallaght Central. The law is wrong in my opinion. We are in a situation where there is an empty seat in Tallaght Central and we, as councillors, are therefore tasked with fulfilling the role of the electorate.”

“We are the electors, the decision has passed from the hands of the voters into our hands, and that, I say, is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs.”

Candidates being able to run in multiple constituencies is a “serious issue for our democracy,” he said.

“It’s a practice that’s banned in most other jurisdictions and it is something that clearly needs intervention from the government; we’ve been waiting for Seanad reform since 1979 so I am not holding my breath.”

“Democratic accountability should not be sidestepped,” he added.

Independent councillor Paul Gogarty called the situation “a load of hot air.”

The Lucan councillor said “the reality is councillor Holohan has a mandate; he has nominated someone and I am happy to vote for that individual and represent the democracy the way people voted, the way people would vote for a candidate in a general election as well.”

Clondalkin councillor William Carey said “I don’t accept that any councillor sitting in here should be beholden to another councillor, and that is the situation that will develop should people be able to run in multiple seats and then choose who they put into those seats; that is a bad sign for our democracy.”

The Sinn Féin councillor added “we should not second guess the views of the electorate. I have no idea where the second preferences Paddy (Holohan) garnered would have gone. I don’t know who those people chose. That should be a situation that should have been answered at the count through people’s voice, but unfortunately, that has not happened.”

Fianna Fáil’s Shane Moynihan said he “fundamentally” disagrees with the idea of people running in two different areas, saying it is “unfair.”

“I and my Fianna Fáil colleagues will be writing to the Minister (Darragh O’Brien, who is also the Minister for Local Government in addition to his duties in Housing), to legislate to stop the practice.”

“We cannot ignore the democratic wishes expressed by 967 people in Tallaght Central. We have no way of divining what their intentions were when they voted, but the closest signal we have according to their preferences is that they voted for an independent candidate and not for People Before Profit.”

Fianna Fáil’s five councillors voted in favour of Donnelly,

Labour councillor Ciarán Ahern said “with all respect to councillor Holohan, it’s not transparent, it’s not democratic and I just don’t think it’s honourable to do so. It’s different to party co-option where there are laws in place for that. If you want to form a party and run multiple candidates, by all means, go ahead and do so.”

“Councillor Holohan is perfectly entitled to run wherever he likes and be elected wherever he likes, but no one forced him to do this.”

“It is a binary choice for us between the two candidates; we believe with Mr Mahon putting himself forward and having just missed out on the seat in Tallaght Central, he has a better claim to the seat in Tallaght Central.”

Social Democrats councillor Eoin Ó’Broin said “we don’t know the politics of Mr Donnelly; councillor Holohan has questioned items like climate change in the past which is a global crisis that has to be dealt with. That makes us wonder if Mr Donnelly will have similar views or not. We know what we’re getting with councillor Mahon.” 

People Before Profit’s four councillors, Labour’s three councillors, and the Social Democrats’ two councillors voted in favour of Mahon.

Sinn Féin’s five councillors abstained in relation to the vote, saying they wished to respect the mandate of the Tallaght voters as there was no way of knowing where Holohan’s transfers went.

Ultimately, Donnelly was voted in by a simple majority of 22 votes, Mahon received 11 votes, with five absentations overall.