Attempt to fill Anthony Flynn's council seat today set to fail

Anthony Flynn died in August. He was the co-founder and director of Inner City Helping Homeless.

An attempt this evening to fill the Dublin City Council seat held by the late Anthony Flynn with a close friend and colleague of his is likely to fail, the Irish Examiner has learned. 

Over the weekend, an email was circulated from the independent group of councillors putting forward the name of Geraldine Molloy, a senior caseworker with the charity Inner City Helping Homeless (ICHH), which Mr Flynn founded.

The email stated that the nomination had the backing of the Flynn family, but a number of sources on the council are predicting that the nomination will be deferred if it results in a vote. 

There is unease among councillors and the council’s executive at the prospect of the nomination going ahead while investigations into the charity are persisting. 

On Friday, the High Court granted an order to have an inspector appointed to the charity which has been mired in controversy following allegations that Mr Flynn had sexually assaulted a number of men. 

Mr Flynn died by suicide on August 18. He was chief executive of ICHH and had been a city councillor since 2019. Attempts to reconstitute the board were abandoned last month when there were attempts to install close friends of Mr Flynn onto it.

Independent councillor Mannix Flynn says that the nomination “should not go ahead until there is full clarity on the [ICHH] situation.”

“Ms Molloy, who is probably an exemplary individual, was a close friend of Anthony Flynn. There are governance issues here which have not yet been sorted out. 

This pushing forward of a candidate which there is still a live investigation ongoing is principally wrong and sends out an appalling signal to the victims who have come forward in this instance and to other who may be thinking of coming forward.

He says he will nominate Éilis Ryan of the Workers Party, who just lost out on a seat in the inner city ward in 2019, if Ms Molloy is nominated. 

Sources in the largest grouping on the council, including Fianna Fail, the Labour Party, the Social Democrats, and the Greens suggest that the seat will not be filled this evening and a nomination deferred until all investigations are completed. 

Ms Molloy did not respond to messages left for her.