A bitter dispute has erupted in Kilkenny after an agreement to rotate the mayoralty between the three main parties broke down.
The election of the corporation was supposed to have heralded a new era of co-operation between Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour. Instead Fianna Fail members walked out of the corporation's first meeting on Monday night, claiming a deal had been done behind their backs by the other two parties.
In the absence of the five Fianna Fail councillors the remaining seven members - four from Fine Gael and three from Labour - elected Labour councillor Mr Tony Patterson to succeed Mr John Bolger as mayor. Fine Gael's Mr Pat Crotty was elected deputy mayor.
Each side blamed the other yesterday. The crux of the dispute was Labour's insistence that it provide two mayors during the five-year lifetime of the newly-elected body. Fianna Fail had insisted that the two larger parties provide two mayors each and Labour just one.
Mr John McGuinness TD, who topped the poll, said he and his colleagues believed the three-party arrangement was still in place when they attended Monday's meeting.
"When Tony Patterson was proposed and seconded it was clear that we had no constructive role to play in the election of mayor. We were left with no alternative but to walk out."
He said the arrangement favoured by his party was a fair one, given that Fianna Fail received 46 per cent of the vote in the election, Fine Gael 29.6, and Labour 15.7 per cent. The decision to exclude Fianna Fail was a "shameful piece of political opportunism" that did no credit to those involved, he added.
Mr Paul Cuddihy, a Fine Gael councillor, said the problem was that all parties were seeking to have two mayors each over five years. Fianna Fail, he said, had rejected a compromise solution that the mayors' terms should be for 10 months each, instead of a year.
He claimed Fianna Fail had put forward two alternatives: that the 2-2-1 arrangement be forced through, which his party had rejected, or that they revert to the pre-election Fianna Fail-Fine Gael pact. Mr McGuinness denies this was suggested.
Mr Patterson said his party felt it was entitled to two seats, given that it had been excluded for the past five years.
