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THE CHAIRMAN OF Kerry County Council has apologised to a fellow councillor for what he has now described as an “inappropriate spur-of-the-moment” comment.
John Sheahan told his fellow councillor, Fine Gael’s Aoife Thornton, that “the only thing now is (to) dye the hair blonde” after Thornton had struggled to gain speaking time at a meeting of Kerry County Council yesterday.
Thornton claimed she had been repeatedly ignored when trying to have her voice heard at the meeting of the 33-member council regarding the state of the roads in her locality, and had even taken the trouble to wear a yellow jacket in order to be noticed.
Speaking to Kerry Today with Jerry O’Sullivan on Radio Kerry this morning, Sheahan apologised for what he had said, but asserted that he feels he “did nothing wrong”.
“But I certainly have no problem apologising to Aoife because I’d hate to think I would do anything to hurt or upset people, that’s not me,” Sheahan said.
Women have a tough deal in politics and we have some great female politicians on Kerry County Council, who are very articulate and well able to do their job.
Challenge
They do their job very well and hopefully we’ll see more of them in the future.
Sheahan added that the meeting had been “very busy” and said that it had been a challenge to get through the agenda while being fair to all the councillors.
When asked would he have made his comments to a man he said “that’s a very good question”.
“I don’t usually go around commenting on men’s hair. If I could take it back I would.”
He said it had been a “humorous comment” made in an attempt to move the meeting along and that nothing further had been meant by it.
Speaking to the same programme, Thornton later said “I wasn’t happy, I don’t think it was appropriate” regarding Sheahan’s comment.
“Having said that I’ve sat beside John for many years on the council and we have a good working relationship,” she said, adding that she accepted Sheahan’s apology.
We did have a very busy meeting yesterday… but in saying that I wasn’t happy at not being able to speak, but this is politics.
I didn’t take the joke as an insult, although I would have to say it was not appropriate.
“I feel I did nothing wrong,” Sheahan said in response. “But I certainly have no problem apologising to Aoife.”
FG is ideologically opposed to public funding of social housing.
@Tony Daly: Wicklow County Council has announced close to a billion euro in funding for social housing over the last 3 years…. In that time it hasn’t even turned a sod on a single solitary social housing unit….. Not one house…….
Isn’t Wicklow co co dominated by sf?
@Tony Daly: Social Housing worked excellently in council housing areas! No social repercussion at all, nope, none.
@FifiJamming: Sf have 19% of seats (28% including former members) while FF+FG collectively have 47% .
So SF doesn’t dominate the council .
Messed up a bit.
SF actually have 9% and formally 19%
@FifiJamming
God help Wicklow if that’s the case. Although does that mean anyone can now buy or build a house in Wicklow if they haven’t lived there for at least 15 years or more. Not an SF’er by the way!
@FifiJamming: 6 SF councillors out of 32 elected in 2014.
Currently down to 3.
Do your own math.
In a capitalist meritocracy low and middle income workers should be rewarded first with scheme of “affordable housing” possibly in a public private partnership. The grey cotton tracksuit brigade should not be prioritised over those who are paying into the system.
Biggest scam in the country is social housing.
The mini riot in Sweden reminded me of the million project they executed in the late 60s to fulfill the housing demands. It had a remit to build 1m housing units (a mix between 3 bed units and 1 bed units for students) over 10 years. At the end of the 10th year, there were 1,000,600 new units built, and public transit, schools, shops and community centres to all of them by the 3rd year. It has become an issue now as some areas have become ghettoed with immigrant numbers, but the idea was perfect in oversupplying the market, and subsidising it with 30% paid by the renters over the next 10 years. And we struggle to get a politician to actually plan over 100 houses. Something like this across the country would eliminate any social housing problems in areas where you can work.
Hard to believe Richie is lying ☺
You’re a coward Willy
Everyone knows no social houses are getting built anyone on the housing list has rented houses pushed upon them and landlords don’t want them it’s a horrible situation fine gael has put upon families
The party of lies and spin.
The Irish Tories.
Fat check go Enda go
Coming from dirty Dan here la
It could be any number now as theres an election on the horizon. False promises and all that!
Fine Gael and lies seem to go hand in hand, and you’ll still get morons to justify their position and vote for them.
fact checking a political promise? especially from fg? that the best you can do? you do know they fg are the first to tell you it means nothing!
if you ever need a sounding board on what to fact check let me know and I will tell you if its an exercise in futility
Why am i paying a mortgage and people are getting same house for nothing? Is it because i am working since im 15? Surely i should be rewarded for my contribution and good behaviour. Whilst people who contribute nothing get rewarded for bad behaviour. Raising my kids i never reward them for bad behaviour. A welfare bubble is developing..it is a sinkhole for tax payers money.
Yep. Richard has been known to deliver an occasional porkie.
Simple answer none cos they will be gone before a brick is layed
in fairness to him he built a load of housing in Collinswood and told no one about this we’re not against social housing but not 100 % its already a problem so be careful what you want
It’s much much cheaper for council to build they’re own houses than buy in ptivate estates, firstly they own the land ,and 50 % of a private house is taxes and fees therefore they should be able to build two houses for everyone private, also we who work are wonder why bother buy your house when the council can give you one for less than half a morgage, leaving you more pjamas time and an audi and a foreign holiday as I can see from my sitting room window ,wondering why bother working hard went your taxes are being used to fund some strangers leisure lifestyle .
Wow talk about splitting hairs!
John, “splitting hairs” or “alternative facts”?
,Brutons record with the truth isn’t the best,fact check on pill hogans expense account in Brussels compared to Hayes,excluding secretarial stuff as hogan is finding it hard to replace his other Secetary.
@John Smith: talk about accuracy.
@John Smith: It’s not splitting hairs, it’s either not knowing the correct information or just bare faced lying by Bruton…I’d go with the latter though.
While new houses, “social” or otherwise, are desperately needed, the housing problem will never be solved by convincing the Government itself to build a small token number of new housing units. What truly needs to happen is for the Government to unleash the private building market, so that the private sector can quickly and efficiently build the huge number of new houses that the Irish nation needs.
Fg and ff are couring the masses on social housing just as ff have over Irish water even though it’s like playing total con artists on the big screen. Parties should be heavily fined for carrying on a pretence of intention like this.
have your say