Row over access to County Development Plan tapes rumbles on

PAUL MURPHY

A STRONG denial that there was any conflict between officials of Meath County Council and councillors over the issue of the release of audio/video recordings from over 80 hours of debate by Zoom on the Council’s draft County Development Plan was made by a Fine Gael councillor at the Council's monthly meeting on Monday.

The issue sparked a sometimes heated debate at the meeting held remotely.

Cllr Gerry O’Connor said he wanted to raise an issue with regard to an article in the Phoenix magazine which outlined a series of developments around access to the tapes of the meetings. Seven Independent, one Aontu and one Labour councillor have applied to the Council for copies of the tapes but the Council has refused the request on the basis that the tapes were used merely as an 'aide memoire' to drawing up the written minutes of the meetings and that it was its view that the recordings could be destroyed some time after the expected sanctioning of the completed development plan this Autumn.

The written minutes were passed by 23 votes to three with nine abstentions.

The Council had offered a compromise solution whereby councillors who wanted to review the tapes in person could give notice of the segment they wanted to hear and then come into Council offices to hear it. However, this was rejected by the nine councillors and they have now commissioned solicitor Fred Logue to submit a Freedom of Information request to the Council seeking full copies of the tapes. The issue has developed into a stand-off between the nine councillors and the Council executive over the last three weeks.

Several councillors at Monday’s meeting referred to the fact that the Council had voted 39-1 at the start of the County Development Plan process that the tapes could be destroyed after adoption of the completed plan but independent councillors said they had changed their minds on this process.

Cllr O’Connor denied that there was any existing conflict between the officials and the councillors over the audio/video recordings. It was the members themselves, not the officials, who voted that. The Council could suffer reputational damage by what had been printed, he said. Any decision on the recordings was not made by the officials but by the councillors voting in the council chamber. The article had implied that the council had something to hide when it did not.

“There is not a dispute between the executive and the councillors. It is a decision carried out by the vote of the members [councillors].”

Fianna Fail Cllr Paul McCabe said that either the nine councillors concerned had "suffered dementia" or had forgotten the fact that they had agreed to the procedure by vote in the chamber last year. Independent Cllr Nick Killian said he very much resented the reference to dementia. He was a 70-year-old man and “thank God” didn’t suffer from dementia. "How dare you use that reference,” he said. Cllr McCabe said he was withdrawing that reference.

Cllr Killian said the issue was about democracy. “It is about a group of councillors who have a view. There is no disrespect to any staff member or any county councillor”. He denied that they were “rebels” as stated in the article.

Independent Cllr Brian Fitzgerald said he stood by his remarks as quoted in the Phoenix article. He said the Meath Chronicle could have printed an article about the issue two weeks ago but it had chosen not to. Nobody had a right to destroy anything, he said. If a judicial review was sought on the Development Plan, the recordings could be important. The councillors concerned had a right to the recordings. He and the technical group of nine councillors were making no apologies for what they had done in relation to access to the tapes.

Independent Cllr David Gilroy said that for anyone to say the Council had anything to hide was “wide of the mark”.

Fine Gael Cllr Joe Fox said that all the councillors were in the chamber and voted on what should be done in relation to the tapes. The Council meetings were a public forum and anything that was done in the open. He had fears that any wrong impression given by the issue could adversely affect foreign direct investment.

Cathaoirleach Sean Drew said that everything that had been done in reference to the county development plan had “100 per cent transparency.” He asked members to refrain from further comment and to leave the issue to the Freedom of Information request that had gone in to the Council.