City Hall picket calls for full council probe

There must be a full official investigation into the origin of all the training courses attended by members of the Limerick City Council in view of the latest scandal, a spokesman for Republican Sinn Fein said today when a picket was placed on the council meeting.

Joe Lynch from Ballinacurra Weston, the vice-chairman of the Munster RSF Executive, said that the disclosure in a Sunday newspaper that a company owned by a son of Cllr Pat Kennedy provided training services to City Hall is a cause for concern. The fact that Cllr Kennedy is stated to be a director of the company only adds to the appearance of a vested interest at work, said Mr. Lynch. The fact that Cllr Kennedy also attended the course with other members of the City Council and was in fact paid public money for so attending must be questioned, and the City Council would be within its rights to ask for his resignation.  The only honourable course open to Cllr Kennedy is to resign and be replaced on the City Council by another Independent candidate from Ward 4 According to the latest report, the issue of attending the conference was raised by Cllr John Gilligan who then proposed that members of the City Council attend to learn about defamation and the role of the councillor. During the discussion, no one admitted that they had any connection to the company providing the course, but now it emerges that Cllr Kennedy is stated to be director of the firm. We are now calling for an official probe of all the seminars and courses attended by councillors during the past five years to ascertain if there is any link to a member of the Council.