New councillors will be appointed to fill empty seats on two Dublin local authorities on Monday, just three months after the local elections were held.
Vacancies have arisen on South Dublin County Council and on Fingal County Council, both of which should have 40 elected representatives, with the 39 councillors in each area expected to agree to the co-option of a new member at their meetings on Monday.
In the South Dublin local authority area a seat has been vacant since the elections on June 7th due to former mixed martial arts fighter Paddy Holohan running and winning seats in two electoral areas.
Mr Holohan topped the poll in Tallaght South and was also elected in Tallaght Central. He chose to take up the Tallaght South seat, and has the right to nominate a new member for the Tallaght Central seat.
Mr Holohan was first elected in 2019 as a Sinn Féin representative, but resigned from the party in March 2021 and ran in the most recent elections as an Independent.
His resignation from Sinn Féin came after the party twice took disciplinary proceedings against the councillor. It emerged in January 2020 that during his “No Shame” podcast Mr Holohan had said he had heard “loads of” underage girls were having sex with men in order to blackmail them. There were, he said “some f**king scum women out there”.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald subsequently described his comments as “beyond offensive” and “vile” and he was suspended for a number of months.
Following the lifting of this suspension local Sinn Féin councillors in June 2020 nominated Mr Holohan for the post of county mayor, but he was not elected by the other South Dublin councillors to the position.
The following March the party again said it was taking disciplinary action against Mr Holohan after he refused a request to take down a social media post supporting a salon owner who reopened in breach of Covid-19 restrictions.
This time Mr Holohan said he was leaving Sinn Féin, citing “highly unfair” treatment by the party the previous year when he said he had been placed under investigation but the findings of the investigation had not been released “to the public, to the media and or to the members of Sinn Féin themselves”.
He saw out the remainder of the council term as an Independent.
People Before Profit (PBP) councillors had urged Mr Holohan to co-opt their nominee for the local elections, Kieran Mahon, who came seventh in the six-seat constituency of Tallaght Central. However, Mr Holohan said he was “not swayed at all” by their request and was instead nominating Dean Donnelly, a martial arts coach who works in Mr Holohan’s gym.
“PBP co-opted a councillor last term, and all councillors supported that with no issue. There was no issue expressed with me running in this area until I got elected there,” Mr Holohan told The Irish Times.
He said he would continue to work for the people of Tallaght Central.
“I was elected in that area, I reached the quota, regardless of the outcome I will continue to do the work I do and be a voice in that area.”
In Fingal, Sinn Féin has nominated Ann Graves to fill the seat vacated by its councillor Marian Buckley, who resigned a month after the local elections. Ms Buckley in July announced she was stepping down due to medical advice.
Ms Graves had been a sitting councillor heading into the elections, but lost her seat by two votes to Ms Buckley. Ms Graves will also be a Sinn Féin candidate for the next general election.
