War of words sees Council meeting delayed

The war of words broke out between Fianna Fáil's John Paul Feeley (left) and Fine Gael's Paddy O'Reilly (right) when they clashed over comments the latter had made during a debate about roadworks funding at the March meeting, calling Cllr Feeley a “liar”.

Cllr O'Reilly had fumed about the failure to adopt any funding for Local Improvement Schemes (LIS) on private laneways in the county.
In the course of the March debate, Cllr Feeley made the point there was no LIS funding available - as the scheme had previously been abolished by government. But on that point Cllr O'Reilly hit out at the young Blacklion councillor, calling him a “liar” given that the council had discretion to use up to 15% of its road funding from central government for such purposes.
Taking up the grievance on Monday, Cllr Feeley said: “I have no difficulty with hard and fair political debate”, however he drew the line at “name-calling”, and called for the alleged besmirchment to be “withdrawn” by Cllr O'Reilly.
While departing from his previous wording, the Virginia representative instead opted to describe Cllr Feeley as “economical with the truth or facts”.
Cllr O'Reilly furthermore denied accusing the CEO, Tommy Ryan, of “dishonesty” in relation to road funding and criticising the Celt's reporting on the matter. “I am not apologising because I didn't say it [that he was dishonest].”

'Forgetfulness'

He then moved to accuse Cllr Feeley of “forgetfulness”, recalling a comment by him at another meeting of Council members where sitting Fine Gael TDs at the time Joe O'Reilly, Heather Humphreys and Sean Conlan, were referred to as “monkeys”.
Cllr Feeley would later address the remark, stating how he had been “man enough” to stand over and apologise for those comments, but clarified they had been made in reference to the adage of 'see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil', and no other offence was meant by it.

Intervention

Suggesting that elected members refrain from making “personal comments” about others in future, Mr Ryan considered the squabble as “presenting a poor image” of the Council and its business.
But with the matter at deadlock, the meeting was adjourned much to the frustration of Cathaoirleach Fergal Curtin, with Mr Ryan and Director of Services Eoin Doyle parachuted in to broker a peace deal between the warring factions.
After more than an hour of tense out-of-chamber discussions, the meeting got back under way with Cllr O'Reilly standing by his comments that Cllr Feeley had been “economical with the facts”.