Democracy out the door in Donegal

These are bad tempered times on Donegal County Council. This week, I interviewed a very angry Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, one of Sinn Féin's four county councillors.

The burgher masters that preside over the rotten borough that is Donegal County council are in for a rough ride over the next five years. Padraig seethed as he recounted the process of political exclusion that is being practiced by the establishment parties on Donegal County Council.

"We entered the county council elections with a contract with the people. We advocated a power-sharing, inclusive form of local politics, where all voices would be heard and all mandates would be recognised.

"The irony of the situation is that Sinn Féin has been hammered in the media for referring to "establishment parties". However, that is exactly what has happened in Donegal. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Independent Fianna Fáil are agreed that there will be no Shinners about the place.

There have already been legal challenges to what went on at the first AGM of Donegal County Council as covered in An Phoblacht. But the scale of what the Establishment parties have pulled off in Donegal is staggering.

They have effectively said to 15% of the electorate, "if you vote for Sinn Féin, don't expect to be represented in the council committees".

This is reminiscent of what James McDaid did in Kerry North before the last general election. He turned up the one-man gaffe machine and blurted out on Kerry radio that "people have to realise that Fianna Fáil means money for North Kerry". The point was - vote for the Shinners and see the cash dry up.

In Donegal, the message is that your councillor can be on influential committees or you can vote Sinn Féin.

Pádraig reckons that not only the vote but also the behaviour of Sinn Féin councillors has been a wake up call to the sleepy hollow that is local government in Donegal.

"We are a virus in the machine," he says of the Sinn Féin team, led in the council chamber by the impressive Thomas Pringle, who already has five years under his belt as a campaigning independent.

Things are about to get a whole lot more interesting in these parts.