Sinn Féin seek the hot seat for 2016

A stand-off with historic connotations is emerging behind the scenes at Cavan County Council, as right across the country elected members of Sinn Féin are actively being encouraged to seek the role of Cathaoirleach to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.

The move follows news last week that a Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Dublin will preside over the 1916 Rising centenary commemorations, alongside the President and Taoiseach, after the party succeeded in forming a ruling coalition on Dublin County Council. That message has now gone countrywide, particularly on local authorities where the party have a potentially deciding say follow recent local elections.
In Cavan, Sinn Féin retained four seats and a rotating chair policy was adopted by the three local parties last week, with Fianna Fáil’s Shane P O’Reilly laying claim to the leader’s position for the first year, 2014-15.
However, The Anglo-Celt understands both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are positioned to take the chair in 2015-16 and 2016-17 respectively. It means Sinn Féin look set to miss out ahead of the 100 year Rising anniversary, and as of now are not due to hold the role until 2017-18.
Fine Gael, it has been decided, will hold the position of chair in the last and final year, 2018-19, before the next elections.

SF hopeful
Sinn Féin locally, however, still hold hope of persuading their fellow chamber members to change their minds and allow the party take the chair for part of the historic year.
“The way it is at the moment, the rotation of the chair has been agreed, yes. But we’d be hopeful the other parties involved would be willing to discuss the situation further,” Bailieborough Sinn Féin Cllr, and Party Whip Paddy McDonald told The Anglo-Celt. “It’s something we’d like to see happen. It would be a massive honour for the party and for any one of our elected members to serve as chair for that year.”
He is satisfied with the agreement in place, which sees the larger parties get two turns each at the chairmanship, and Sinn Féin set to hold the role of Leas Cathaoirleach, one of which could be during the 2016 centenary commemorations.
“I will be raising it again next year before the chair is allocated. Even if we got it for the second-half of 2016, we’d be very happy with that,” Cllr McDonald said.

Set in stone
Discussions did take place behind the scenes between the whips of the parties following the local elections and in the run-up to the first official meeting of the new, leaner Council last week.
But the whips of both other parties, John Paul Feeley for Fianna Fáil and Paddy O’Reilly of Fine Gael have indicated to this newspaper the rotation policy agreed upon is, for all intensive purposes, set in stone.
“I can’t see us changing the agreement that’s there. The Chair in 2016 was mentioned but it was never a big deal in any of the discussions we had,” Cllr Feeley told the Celt.
Cllr O’Reilly meanwhile, simply stated “no” when he was asked if his party would consider swapping their position on the rotation.
“We have agreed what has been agreed and I don’t think it will be revisited.”