Councillor storms out and Mayor calls him ‘ago bsh*te’

April 1999

It was the night the press were left in the dark and the Mayor of Wexford called a councillor from his own area ‘a gobshite’.

It all started with a motion from independent councillor, Michael Furlong of Maudlintown, which on the face of it seemed irrelevant to Wexford.

Cllr. Furlong was calling on the Minister for Health to enquire into the running of a centre for disabled people in Co. Kilkenny.

Reading between the lines, it appeared that a young Wexford man residing in the centre had been injured, and Cllr. Furlong wanted Corporation support for further investigations into exactly how the ‘accident’ had happened there.

He had the accident report in his pocket, he said, and added that the juvenile in question had arrived home from the care centre with bruising and thumb marks on his neck from a reported fall.

No-one seconded the motion and Cllr. Furlong reacted to the silence around the table by remarking: ‘ thank you very much, it’s a nice way of diving for cover’.

Padge Reck didn’t take too kindly to that, and said: ‘We are being asked to support something that we know nothing about. I’ve been a councillor for twenty years and I’m not going to get involved in litigation for something I know nothing about.’

Directing his words to the Mayor, Cllr. Furlong said: ‘I made you aware of this matter before Christmas’.

Mayor Nolan replied: ‘ The allegations you made to me, I gave you an answer on them. Your motion is lost.’

Cllr. Furlong picked up his papers and proceeded to leave the room with a parting shot: ‘ That’s unbelievable coming from the Mayor of Wexford,’ he said.

Mayor Nolan didn’t let him get away with it. ‘And from a gobshite like you,’ he shouted after him.

Cllr. Furlong popped his head around the door to offer one final comment: ‘ That’s lovely, coming from the first citizen of Wexford.’

After Cllr. Furlong had departed, Ald. Gus Byrne, a member of the South Eastern Health Board, said he was willing to brief his colleagues on the situation, but not in public.

The Mayor was concerned that he had been accused of something.

‘I gave him guidance and told him where to go,’ he said.

‘ This has been investigated at the highest level, even by the law, and there was no foundation to it,’ he added.

At the end of the meeting, Ald. Byrne again offered to elaborate on the details of the case and Mayor Nolan advised him against it in one word: ‘No,’ he said.