Controversy as FG elder statesman to be made freeman

ELDER statesman Peter Barry is to be made a freeman of Cork.

It follows a 20-6 vote by the city’s councillors yesterday supporting the Lord Mayor Councillor Dara Murphy’s proposal to confer the honour on the former Fine Gael tánaiste. It is expected the ceremony will take place in early June.

But the procedure by which future freemen are nominated is to be radically overhauled after Mr Barry’s nomination was mired in controversy.

A row flared last month when Fianna Fáil claimed they had reached a gentleman’s agreement with FG and Labour not to confer the honour for the next few years.

But the party changed its position last night and voted in favour of Mr Murphy’s proposal to honour Mr Barry for his political, business and charitable contribution to the city over several decades.

Fianna Fáil’s leader on the council, Cllr Terry Shannon, said Mr Barry’s name in Cork is iconic and that his family has served the city with distinction but he said the manner in which he was nominated exposed deficiencies in the procedure.

“The freedom of the city is a gift of council, not of the lord mayor,” Mr Shannon said.

“We were cast in the light of being anti the nominee in question and the manner in which the Barry family was dragged through the press was nothing more than a disgrace – and this was done by his own people. It was highly politicised.”

He accused the lord mayor of going on a “solo run”.

“You broke all the rules. There was little or no consultation.

“A great man was done down by his own,” he said.

He said FF will bring forward proposals to change the nomination process from one of a simple majority to a situation where 23 councillors will be required to vote in favour of future nominees.

The lord mayor rejected Mr Shannon’s criticism and said there was “an element of determination” about how he went about securing the freedom honour for Mr Barry.

“I am grateful for the Fianna Fáil votes but we didn’t need them. The right man has been nominated,” he said.

Sinn Féin, Independent Chris O’Leary, Socialist Mick Barry, and the Worker’s Party’s Ted Tynan all voted against Mr Barry’s nomination.

SF Cllr Jonathon O’Brien said the frequency with which the freedom honour has been awarded in recent years has devalued the honour itself, and the people who receive it.

“It is something that should only be given out once in the history of the council,” he said.

Mr Tynan criticised the Labour Party and accused them of agreeing to a “backroom deal” with FF and FG to push through the proposal.

He said the award is now a “tarnished honour because of the manner of its proposal and the political motivation behind it”.

Peter Barry was educated in Cork and became the major shareholder in the family company, Barry’s Tea.

He was a Dáil TD for Cork between 1969 and 1997. He served as tánaiste in 1987 and deputy leader of Fine Gael from 1979-1987 and from 1989 to 1993.

He was also a minister for foreign affairs, the environment, transport and power and education.

His daughter, Deirdre Clune, succeeded him in the 1997 general election, failed to be re-elected in 2002, but won the seat back in 2007.

She became the third generation of her family to hold the mayoralty in Cork, following in the footsteps of her father, who was lord mayor of Cork from 1970-71 and her late grandfather, Anthony, who was lord mayor from 1960-61.

Previous recipients of the freedom of Cork include John F Kennedy, Éamon de Valera, Mary McAleese, Jack Lynch, Mary Robinson, Sonia O’Sullivan, Roy Keane and Michael Flatley.