Row erupts over whose side councillors are on in public sector dispute
“You are good craic today!” Cathaoirleach Richard Truell exclaimed after he had to bang the table in the council chamber to bring order back to this morning’s (Monday’s) meeting, as there was a shouting match going on between Cllr Sinead Flynn (SF) and Cllr Seán Gilliland (FG).
The scene unfolded at the Ballybay/Clones Municipal District (MD) in Clones. The row flared up after the public sector strike was mentioned by the meeting’s chair in passing, when he expressed confidence that the “issue should be solved today or tomorrow.”
“If the Government would listen to the unions!” Cllr Sinéad Flynn commented. As the Cathaoirleach clapped back: “The unions have to listen to the Government too!”
Fine Gael’s Seán Gilliland said that the unions had been invited to engage with the Government.
Cllr Flynn replied: “We’ll have to agree to disagree, The Government falls short.”
Cllr Gilliland accused Cllr Flynn of having to take “some sort of umbrage with it,” before adding: “Sinn Fein are an all-island party. You can’t speak out of the two sides of your mouth.”
The Sinn Féin representative said that the Government did that all the time.
The Fine Gael representative noted that there was a pay agreement in place in the Republic, but that the finance and First Ministers still had “not sorted it out in Northern Ireland.”
Cllr Pat Treanor of Sinn Fein advised Cllr Gilliland that he’d “want to talk to his friends in the DUP,” adding that “workers were on strike because (the Irish Government) wouldn’t let them in.”
The meeting’s chairperson Cllr Truell said: “I was on the picket line myself, and not as a public representative. I wasn’t there to get my photo taken. The unions have had their wings clipped over the years. I hope after today it’ll be sorted. I’m paying into a union.”
Cllr Flynn advised him to “put his council hat on” and he said that he “did do that.”
Cllr Gilliland made the point that Budget 2026 had set aside money for the pay agreements.
Sinn Fein representative Treanor said that his Fine Gael counterpart was “obviously taking the side of the Government, when it was the workers who had to go out on strike.”
He added that conditions shouldn’t be set out in advance, observing that the issue went back to last June.
Gilliland was further accused of “obviously having a serious hatred for Sinn Féin,” by party representative Cllr Flynn.
Cllr Gilliland said that he was only going on Sinn Féin’s all-island record.
Cllr Flynn added that she had never seen “the amount of discontent in the country,” adding that people “can’t afford to put fuel in cars or food on the table.” She also advised Cllr Gilliland to “engage your brain before your mouth.” Gilliland said that he did.
It was at that point that the Cathaoirleach knocked on the table and brought what he described as a “good discussion” to a close, reiterating: “I was on strike as a HSE worker. Did I want to be there? ... The unions aren’t innocent either.”
At the time of writing today, Monday at lunchtime, both sides were engaged in talks at the Work Relations Commission and the strike action planned for Wednesday was suspended.