Labour row as senator appoints husband to fill seats

THE Labour Party has become embroiled in a political row after a newly elected senator nominated her husband to fill the seats she vacated on two local authorities.

Following controversy at Clonmel Borough Council on Tuesday night, Labour councillor Cyril O’Flaherty resigned from the party in protest.

However, Senator Phil Prendergast insisted yesterday that her husband Ray Prendergast would not be retaining the seats on the borough council and South Tipperary County Council. She said a new candidate would be nominated at a Labour Party convention next month.

A former member of the Clonmel-based Workers and Unemployed Action Group (WUAG), Ms Prendergast ran unsuccessfully for Labour in the May general election but subsequently secured a senate seat. She left the WUAG some years ago after a policy row with former TD Séamus Healy, who lost his Dáil seat in May.

WUAG members are claiming they should be entitled to co-opt somebody onto the local councils to replace Ms Prendergast, as she was still a member of their group during the last local elections.

“She has disenfranchised the people who voted for her by abandoning the policies on which she was elected”, said the WUAG’s three remaining town councillors, Pat English, Billy Shoer and Brian O’Donnell.

“On her election to Seanad Éireann, she had an opportunity to restore democratic expression to the wishes of the people of Clonmel by returning her local authority seats to the WUAG, the rightful owners.”

The group accused Ms Prendergast of “a flagrant denial of the right of the people to democratic representation” and congratulated Mr O’Flaherty on his resignation from the Labour Party.

Mr O’Flaherty said yesterday that, following the events of recent months, “I see no future for me in the party”.

He has decided to continue as an independent member of Clonmel Borough Council.

Ms Prendergast said: “My husband has no intention of remaining on in either seat. “The selection convention to choose my replacement on the county council and Clonmel borough council will take place in early October and whoever comes through those conventions will then be put in to take over Ray’s seat.”

Ms Prendergast said that the WUAG was not a registered political party and that, when she left the councils following her senate success, she “was not obliged” to give a council seat to any grouping.