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THE MAYOR OF South Dublin County Council has resigned from the Labour party, becoming the 27th councillor to leave the junior coalition partner in three years.
Dermot Looney, a 31-year-old teacher who represents the Tallaght Central area of Dublin, had already been selected to run again for the party in May’s local elections.
He said the decision to leave the party he had been involved in for more than a decade had been difficult but he believed it was the right thing to do.
“My time in the Labour party came to a natural end. I’d no distance left to run,” he told TheJournal.ie this evening.
“I made the decision about a month ago but the reason I didn’t go then is that there was a budget [for South Dublin County Council] to get through, where I managed to make some gains for people in the area, and it was the right thing to do to stay until that was done”.
Looney was strongly criticial of Labour, saying the party had abandoned its principles while in government with Fine Gael.
Looney said there was no one policy on which he was making a stand, but that there had been dozens over the lifetime of the Government with which he fundamentally disagreed. He said Labour had ‘kowtowed’ to Fine Gael’s economic agenda to the detriment of the poorest people in society.
“I stand diametrically opposed to government policy – and by extension, that of the Labour Party – in areas as diverse as healthcare, local democracy, housing, state assets and taxation,” he said.
He also criticised the running of the party. “The party is run very strongly from the centre, and councillors like me are having less and less of an impact,” he said. He cited the recent party conference as an example, where, he said, around 20 motions from members weren’t allowed to be brought to the conference floor.
Looney said the reaction so far to his resignation had been “overwhelmingly positive”. He told the Labour councillors on South Dublin County Council and local party members of his decision before it was made public tonight.
Looney will remain on as mayor and councillor ahead of May’s elections.
He ruled out running for any other party and said he would be standing as an Independent in the local elections.
“I’m definitely not running for another party,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do both nationally and locally as an independent, possibly working with other groups from the left”.
Looney had been a member of the party for more than a decade after joining while studying social science in UCD. He was first elected to South Dublin County Council in June 2009 and became the youngest ever mayor of the local authority when he took over the office last year.
Looney made the news last year when he donated €7,000 of his €45,000 allowance as mayor to local community groups.
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I hope she never sees the light of day again
The sickening thing is , she will .
Will she even do time I wonder
I doubt it. It’ll be a Suspended sentence
This is Ireland.
She’ll most likely, get a fully furnished new house to add to her previous portfolio of 3.
A new car.
A raise in her benefits.
New clothes.
And hundreds of thousands of Euro in medical and counselling expenses.
This woman does not deserve to call herself a mother. She’s nothing but a disgusting human. Fair play to those kids for going through with this case and sorry to hear this was allowed to carry on for so long.
How did she get bail? Vile human being, I hope she gets a proper sentence and the kids get the love and help they need.
How could this continue over time without something being done? Neighbours aware, school aware of issues. What did social services do here? This is madness.
Yes, Greg, I wonder what Social Services did here, and what the ISPCC did here, too.
It seems to just have been allowed to continue for 5 years.
It’s astounding, with Child Abuse supposedly being taken so seriously.
I can’t understand what makes someone do that to kids, any kids. I just hope that they get the love and attention that they deserve now as young adults.
Her defense team? Who paid for that I wonder?
Where is/are the father(s)?
How is this tolerated in the 21st century?
She may not even know who the fathers are.
Disgusting! Poor children, God love them
Why didn’t the neighbours report her?
What a twisted bitch
I heard some of the mothers defence evidence reported on the radio today in relation to the two boys having their hair pulled out by her…….
“She said the boys were exaggerating, yes, she said, she had to hold them forcibly in a headlock and it took some power to force the neck of the Fairy washing liquid bottle past their clenched teeth as they struggled and won’t allow her to pour the washing up liquid in their mouths because they said a rude word but she didn’t pull out clumps of hair”
That was her defence on that charge alone.
She didn’t see anything wrong with it, that was her defence………What an evil woman.
She is evil, I hope that she never gets out.
It wasn’t just her that failed the children, why were they left in her care for so long, why did it take so long to bring her to court?
Why was there a delay of 5 years from when social services got involved until the kids were taken from this vile evil woman
The poor kids. I hope they can go on to lead normal happy lives.
This evil piece of sc#m should be fed on bread and water for the rest of her miserable life
I hope she gets the help she needs, and for the children’s sake that she is able to establish a normal relationship with them in time.
Joe, I would say that the relationship is way beyond repair.
‘The help she needs’?!! Are you for real Joe?
Why is every perpetrator of horrific crimes given the tag of ‘victim’? Some people are just evil, nasty, deplorable animals and should be disposed of.
After witnessing first hand similar events above I can say from my own experience that forgiveness comes in time. May be a few years, may take decades, the child will still want to be loved / accepted by the parent. They may have a chance at a relationship of some sort depending on the child or no relationship at all depending on the child. The child will also feel a degree of guilt and responsibility even though the child is 100% innocent the guilt is still there.
The child’s want/need to be loved and wanted is huge if they can get that of the fosters career they may never look for their mothers love, but if they are shipped from home to home and only used by the foster career for money (some foster careers not all) then I feel the child future will be hard.
Exactly Colin some people are beyond help, evil will always be evil unfortunately the human race churns out the odd one every now and then, and unfortunately that evil can spawn innocent children.
Well said
Poor kids
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