BREE’S 50 YEARS IN POLITICS
HE STARTED OUT WITH THE LEGION OF MARY BEFORE GOING ON TO THE CONNOLLY YOUTH MOVEMENT AND EVENTUALLY DÁIL EIREANN. DECLAN BREE REFLECTS ON A 50 YEAR CAREER IN PUBLIC LIFE WITH PAUL DEERING AND SAYS RETIREMENT IS NOT BECKONING
OV ER GROWN brats and blackguards, just some of the descriptions given to the Con nolly Youth Movement from the established politicians of the town in the early 1970 s.
There seemed to be ever present clashes between the fledgling left wing grouping led by Declan Bree and the Town Hall.
Protests took place there on a regular basis, inside and out, meetings were disrupted and Gardaí were called on several occasions. There was even one celebrated District Court case arising out of a Connolly Youth Movement protest at the Town Hall.
Radicals versus the establishment fearful of the unknown. Either way Declan Bree, at 17 in 1967 was becoming a bit of a thorn in the side of local politicians and not only that but the Catholic Church and the Gardaí were also keeping a watchful eye on the tall, striking figure from John Street.
Indeed, State papers released in 2005 showed that he was also under surveillance by the country’s army intelligence in 1974 during his term as Mayor of the town. “Not surprised” was Declan’s response to the news, saying it “reflected the general paranoia of Church and State in the Ireland of the 1960’s and 1970’s.”
“Anyone then who was anti-authority was considered subversive,” he added.
Ironically, 50 years on from the heady days of the Connolly Youth Movement, Declan Bree has become what many people believe was the ultimate watcher...... that of officialdom. Even his critics concede that without him much wool would have been pulled over many eyes.
But, it wasn’t a political organisation which Declan first aligned himself to as he grew up in the Vietnam war era. The Legion of Mary was Declan’s first port of call around 1967.
“A lot of people probably wouldn’t believe that. We did a fair bit of social work at the time, visiting people who were in poor circumstances,” he recalls.
The Vietnam War was dominating the news and Declan saw that the Connolly Youth Movement in Dublin, set up by the Irish Workers Party which would later become the Communist Party of Ireland, were protesting against it and he made contact with them. They sent on information on the war but also on the group itself and he began to read some of James Connolly’s writings which he duly passed on to others in the Legion of Mary. A Sligo branch of the CYM was soon established in 1968 numbering about eight.
“We were still in the Legion of Mary. It was certainly a contradiction,” says Declan, who was also playing the trumpet at the time with Sligo Boys’ Club’s brass band, a youth club run by Fr Michael Donnelly.
One of the first campaigns they got involved in was one supporting the retention of PR with Fianna Fáil attempting to abolish it. There was no shortage of other issues to protest against either. EEC membership, the right to vote at 18 instead of 21 and campaigning in support of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.
It would have been the norm during this time for a priest to call to the Bree family home to try to curb the enthusiastic left winger.
“Anyone in the Connolly Youth Movement or anyone seen talking to us would have got a visit from a Priest. Parents were basically told that there was money from Russia and so on with Soviets coming in to brain wash us.”
Protest movements were already well established across Europe and in the US and Declan says in a sense Ireland was playing catch up. “If we had been around three or four years earlier I don’t think we’d have been tolerated as much.”
There were many meetings as Declan progressed in the CYM, being elected to its national executive. Trains, he recalls were too expensive to travel on then so he hitched to the various gatherings all over the country.
And, so began a political career that saw many highs. He was first elected to Sligo County Council in 1974 at the age of 22 and has retained his seat at each subsequent election, topping the poll in the most recent Local Election (May 2014)
He was also a member of Sligo Corporation (Sligo Borough Council) from 1974 until it was abolished by government in 2014. He served as Mayor of Sligo in 2004 and was Chairman of Sligo County Council in 1986.
He won a Dáil seat for the Labour Party in 1992 and served one term, his relationship with the party severing in May 2007 with Declan once again ploughing the lone independent socialist furrow.
However, he admits that had the Labour Party been more active in Sligo (they didn’t meet during the summer) in the 1960’s he would have joined them then and not the CYM. A warm relationship, he said, was formed nevertheless when he got elected with the late Tommy Higgins who was the party’s sole representative on the Corporation and who often seconded Declan’s motions.
“Tommy often said to me, ‘I don’t agree with your motion but I’ ll second it in order to have it debated’,” he said.
Declan got closer to the Labour Party when he was local campaign director for the Presidential campaign of Mary Robinson in 1990 having been asked to do so by Deputy Ruairí Quinn.
When Dick Spring took over he wished to take on board the wider left wing groups and Declan was soon a member and stood in what was called the ‘Spring Tide’ election of 1992, securing a Dáil seat. The party’s decision to go back into coalition in 2007 with Fine Gael dismayed him.
And, so it was back to the bread and butter of local politics. The title of watchdog rests easy with him. He says many people have told him they don’t like his politics but who nevertheless vote for him consistently because he is the only one who will “act as a watchdog and who will question authority.”
Such a stance doesn’t necessarily mean he’s at loggerheads with officials, stressing that he has a warm relationship with the vast majority of officials.
“As far as possible” is Declan’s reply to the question whether he reads every single email, agenda and letter sent to him by the council. There’s no doubting though he is well prepared when he enters the council chamber on a Monday, his preparation starts on the Sunday, starting at lunch time and spending until late evening going through the agenda.
It’s a seven day week for any politician he says. “It’s a difficult life for anyone.”
While he says the council is beginning to address its deficit and turns things around there’s still a lot of debt which means there’s very little money to get jobs done.
“It leaves us that we can deliver very little but at least we have begun to turn things around.” In all his years on the council he says he hasn’t seen anything like the crisis in terms of lack of housing. What’s frustrating is that the council has plenty of land upon which to build.
“In addition our health system is worsening with growing waiting lists in under-funded public hospitals. I believe that access to quality healthcare should not be dependent on income.
“All of this is a by-product of a right wing economic system where the economy is organised for private profit not human need.
“Not yet, but we are going in the right direction,” he says when it is put to him that the vast majority of people haven’t bought into left wing politics.
Other countries like the Nordic ones can provide far better services he emphasises and says this is done by imposing adequate taxes on those who can afford to pay.
Closer to home, he says Sligo has progressed in many ways since he first entered politics but has stayed still in terms of employment especially in the past decade. He sees more and more impact on retail from the internet and doesn’t think it’s feasible anymore for the creation of big shopping centres.
“I just don’t see the type of big shopping centres that were being talked about ten to twelve years ago being feasible.”
There’s no money in politics he says, maybe at ministerial level he concedes and he’s been arrested, threatened and verbally abused in his 50 years in the public eye. Bitter campaigns like the divorce and abortion referendums come to mind but he says he’ ll never give up on looking for an equal society and this still drives him.
“There’s an awful lot of work to be done still. The issues of 50 years ago, that everyone has shelter and an adequate health system. These are just basics and still haven’t been delivered on and certainly need to be fought for.”
“I’d like to think I have influenced politics to a significant extent over the decades, that I’ve influenced the thinking locally not just of the general public but the politicians of the various parties. I believe my highlighting of the mismanagement of the council debt over a number of years has helped. I know a lot of people say they respect me for taking the stance I did on that issue.” His base line has always been to take a principled stance at the beginning and then you wont come under pressure. He’s never been offered a bribe. “Developers would know better than to approach me. They would come way down my pecking order so that I’ve never been offered any brown envelopes or anything like that.”