Rabbitte faces party inquiry over councillor's complaint

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Monday October 31, 2005 13:56 by Gerry

LABOUR leader Pat Rabbitte has been summoned to appear before a Complaints Committee of his own party.

It is the first time in the history of the State that a party leader will be investigated by his own party. If the complaint by a councillor, which accuses him of "acting in a manner unbecoming of a Labour Party leader" is fully upheld, he could face suspension or even expulsion.

Sligo-based Labour councillor, Declan Bree, initiated the proceedings after a letter to a newspaper, in which Pat Rabbitte accused him of abusing his position as mayor to prevent a halting site for travellers being located in his own electoral ward.

Yesterday, in an unprecedented move, the General Secretary of the Labour party, Mike Allen, confirmed in writing that the complaint, which could have been dismissed as vexatious, would instead be referred to the Complaints Committee.Last February, during his first time tenure as mayor of Sligo Borough Council, Cllr Bree described as "disgraceful" a decision by the Borough Council to vote down the Traveller Accommodation Programme.

Cllr Bree and three Sinn Fein Councillors had voted to adopt the programme while his two Labour colleagues on the Council had voted with the majority against the proposal.

He later refused to apologise for the remarks which had incurred the wrath of the two Labour councillors and was to face a party disciplinary hearing.

In a letter to the Irish Times in September in advance of that hearing, Mr Rabbitte wrote: "In Sligo, Cllr Bree used his position as Mayor to stop an accommodation site going into his own electoral ward and sought to put it into the ward of a colleague that already has three such sites."

But Cllr Bree has pointed out that the minute book of Sligo Borough Council for February 2005 can confirm that the only proposal in regard to his ward, the East Ward, was an amendment to the Traveller Accommodation Programme to the effect that a location be sought in the ward for the provision of apartments for newly wed young travellers.