Opposition to Mayoral pact is in defence of democracy

Commenting on Thursday night's (June 24th) election for Lord Mayor of Cork at City Hall, Workers Party councillor Ted Tynan said that comments from the pact candidate Michael O’Connell that he would “take politics out of the Mayoralty” were a total contradiction of the process that would elect Cllr. O’Connell where a three party pact would once again claim the office of Lord Mayor and deny almost one third of councillors their say in the election.

Cllr. Tynan said that it was not politics that needed to be taken out of the office of Lord Mayor but party politics. “The office of Lord Mayor of Cork is a deeply political office and is one the people of Cork are very proud of. One could hardly say that Lord Mayors such as Tomás Mac Curtain and Terence McSwiney were not political when in fact every fibre of their bodies were full of politics but they did not engage in the politics of self-promotion and exclusion of all other points of view”.

“It is a great pity that those members of the pact parties, and indeed some in the media see the nomination of candidates for the position of Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor by those of us outside the pact as some kind of nuisance. We do so in defence of the democracy that people like Mac Curtain and McSwiney fought for. To do otherwise would be a denial of the democratic votes of the thousands of citizens who voted for non-pact candidates”, said Cllr. Tynan.

Cllr. Tynan said he will be supporting the nomination of Independent Councillor Chris O’Leary for Lord Mayor and would propose Cllr. Jonathan O’Brien of Sinn Féin for the position of Deputy Lord Mayor.