Row over Limerick freedom honour for President

Hopes of making President Michael D Higgins a Freeman of Limerick City were plunged into further controversy yesterday.

A row between Labour and Fine Gael blocked a proposal in 2013 to bestow the honour on the Limerick-born head of state.

But in another twist to the saga, a decision last Friday by the new Limerick City and County Council to make President Higgins a freeman was deemed illegal by a former city mayor.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the council, held specially in Pallasgreen to pass a vote of sympathy on the death of a former chairman of Limerick County Council, Mary Harty, 54, who died from motor neurone disease.

Former mayor Cllr John Gilligan yesterday demanded an urgent meeting with the mayor of Limerick, Cllr Michael Sheahan.

He claimed there was no advanced notice that the issue of Freedom of the City was on the agenda.

He said: “This was illegal and totally undemocratic. Unfortunately, I could not get to the special meeting in Pallasgreen on a very sad occasion. Such meetings only deal with the passing of a vote of sympathy, and it seems extraordinary that the Freedom of the City for the President was introduced at this meeting, without any advance notice or advance agenda that it was to be dealt with.

“The first I heard of the President being made a Freeman was in last Friday’s Irish Examiner which carried a report a decision had already been taken at some meeting in City Hall. Then hours after this report appeared in the Examiner, the Freedom of the City was introduced at the special meeting in Pallasgreen. I was not informed and got no notice this was on the agenda.

He added: “As far as I am concerned, this is a step too far and totally undemocratic. I have no issue with President Higgins. If you asked me to name the politician I admired most over the past 30 years for his stand on national and international issues, it would be Michael D Higgins. But what has been done here cannot be ignored as it does not work this way.”

A Labour party proposal in 2013 to give the Freedom of the City to President Higgins failed when Fine Gael refused to back it, after Labour voted against the Fine Gael nominee for the last Mayor of Limerick in the old Limerick City Council.

A council spokesman said they had no comment.