‘NO’ TO THE PRESIDENTIAL MEN

SLIGO County Council has decided not to nominate anyone to run for President.

Less than half of the Council (8) members attended a special meeting at Riverside on Monday to decide which of two Dragon’s Dens judges they were going to nominate, or not.

On Wednesday 12 th September, after seven Presidential hopefuls made a pitch to the Council, Fianna Fáil Cllr Keith Henry nominated Cavan entrepreneur Sean Gallagher while Independent Cllr Micheal Clarke nominated US-based Derryman Peter Casey.

Both have since received nominations from four other County Councils and would not have needed a nomination from Sligo County Council.

It came as no surprise therefore, that Cathaoirleach of the Council, Cllr Martin Baker told members on Monday that he had been asked to withdraw both motions from Cllrs Henry and Clarke.

Sinn Féin Councillor Chris MacManus told the meeting that he warned a couple of weeks ago that the whole nomination process had become farcical. “This has been borne out over the last few weeks with farcical scenes in Councils,” he said. Cllr MacManus suggested that any future potential candidate should have to get a petition of a 1,000 signatures.

“It’s brought the whole process into disrepute,” he said, adding that it had seen “self-publicising” candidates “trying to get their names into the media for their own agendas.”

Fine Gael Cllr Hubert Keaney asked that any future meetings would be adjourned if people were filming in the public gallery, contrary to Council rules.

A woman in the public gallery had refused to stop filming at the meeting on 12 th of September. The footage subsequently appeared on journalist Gemma O’Doherty’s YouTube page.

Fianna Fáil Cllr Seamus Kilgannon said prospective candidates should be screened before they appear before a Council looking for a nomination.

He said it was important to “put down a marker” at this point and Sligo County Council “wasn’t the only Council which had to discipline one of the candidates.”

Fine Gael Cllr Sinead Maguire said it struck her as “odd” that neither of the two proposers