New Green Party Candidate Sligo/Leitrim

national | politics / elections | press release

Friday April 27, 2007 10:36

by Kat

Former Labour councillor, Brian Scanlon, became the ninth candidate in the Sligo/North Leitrim constituency for next month’s general election when he was officially ratified to stand for the Green Party this week.

Mr Scanlon, who works for the borough council at Sligo Cemetery, joined the Green Party in March, having resigned from the Labour Party at the beginning of February in protest at the selection of Jim McGarry as the Labour candidate and beacuse he became disillusioned with the political direction Labour were heading in. He was a Labour member of Sligo County Council between 1999 and 2004.

In his resignation letter from the Labour Party he said that 'Clr. McGarry will be well aware that I and the vast majority of Labour Party members in the constituency opposed his application to join the party. ‘He will also know that I was opposed to him becoming a member because in my opinion, he never shared the values of the party and consistently voted against the Labour Party at County Council and Borough Council meetings.

‘Clr. McGarry voted consistently to impose service charges while Labour members and supporters campaigned against the charges. He voted for privatisation of the refuse service while the Labour Party was campaigning to retain it as a public service. ‘He voted in favour of the US using Shannon Airport while Labour members were campaigning against the use of the airport by the US war machine.’

Mr. Scanlon went on: ‘Since Clr. McGarry’s admission to the Labour Party, the organisation in this constituency had become a shadow of its former self. It is in total disarray, is no longer a campaigning party and no longer organises public events or meetings.

‘Last year, when it was unable to hold meetings of the constituency Council because a quorum could never be reached, it was left with no alternative but to change its Standing Orders to reduce the quorum to a handful.

‘In advance of this month’s Constituency Council annual general meeting when nominations were sought to fill the twelve officer positions on the Council, only three members in the entire constituency were prepared to allow their names to go forward. And Clr. McGarry claims he is playing his part in making the party more vibrant and positive’, the letter concluded. http://www.indymedia.ie/article/81159

Speaking at the Connolly Forums annual Easter 1916 Commemoration Ceremony in Sligo on Easter Sunday last year Brian Scanlon who presided at the ceremony told those attending "this 90TH anniversary of the rising provides us with the opportunity to highlight the political views of Connolly and Pearse and the other leaders of the Rising and it provides us with an opportunity to revisit the founding principles of the Republic with a view to attaining the aspirations contained in the 1916 Proclamation and the Democratic Programme of the first Dail.'
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75600

In 2002 he was one of a number of Labour Councillors (Declan Bree (Sligo), Cllr Nicky Kelly (Wicklow) & Cllr Catherine Connolly (Galway)) that came out publically to support the No Campaign in the Nice Treaty referendum.
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/14744

Earlier this week he accused the Labour Party of not being representative of the working class and the underprivileged anymore.

He said he had joined the Greens because it was the party that was nearest to his political beliefs.
“When I started in politics in my 20s I was very involved in trade union activities and labour issues. I believe now because of the way that the country has developed that we need to be very conscious about protecting our environment. There is damage being done by over-development.”
He said that initially when he joined the Greens he was looking towards the local elections in two years time when he would have been seeking to regain his council seat. But he had been asked to stand in the general election and was happy to do so.

Saying he believed he would attract a strong Green vote, Mr. Scanlon identified issues around the preservation of green areas in the town and county as major concerns.

He said that with a lot of hard work during the forthcoming campaign he was confident of causing a major upset by taking one of the three seats on offer.