Cllr Owens in breach of council social media policy
INDEPENDENT councillor Jackser Owens fell foul of County Council Chairman Ger Carthy at last week’s online monthly meeting, after breaching protocol on the use of social media.
In a discussion around Covid-19, Cllr Owens urged Council Chief Executive Tom Enright and Chairman Cllr Ger Carthy to stress the importance of establishing a Covid test centre in the Enniscorthy District. ‘People are very frightened out there,’ Cllr Owens said. ‘We’ve a big population in this district and I’d ask that the HSE provide a test centre here.’
Mr Enright responded that ‘arrangements are being made with the HSE to make properties available in the Enniscorthy area if and when they are needed’.
The discussion was returned to shortly after, however, as the Chairman noted that Cllr Owens had posted about it on social media, in contravention of council policy around social media. ‘I’m going to have to note that a councillor has posted on Facebook about a Covid test centre in Enniscorthy against all policy and procedure,’ Cllr Carthy said. ‘I’d call on Cllr Jackser Owens to remove the post and now this is something that will have to be raised further with the protocol committee.’
Cllr Owens did not respond, nor did he remove the offending post which gained some traction.
Later in the meeting, Cllr Jim Moore once again referred to Cllr Owens’ faux pas while calling for a meeting of the council’s protocol committee to be held as soon as possible. ‘In this very meeting, the topic has been raised of conduct during meetings,’ he said, noting that incidents like this potentially cause friction between councillors and with the council executives.
Over the past year, councillors have been in receipt of regular reminders at the start of council meetings not to post on social media for their duration.