Dean Donnelly, a mixed martial arts coach from Tallaght, has been co-opted on to South Dublin County Council after being nominated by independent Cllr Paddy Holohan.
Mr Donnelly filled the last of the local authority’s 40 seats which has been vacant since the June election as a result of Mr Holohan, a former MMA fighter, winning a seat in two electoral areas – Tallaght South and Tallaght Central. He took up the Tallaght South seat and had the right to nominate a new member for the central area.
“Dean is someone I’ve known a long ling time and there is no one with more integrity and work ethic to fill this vacancy,” Mr Holohan told a council meeting on Monday. He highlighted the community work Mr Donnelly has done and said he would “stand with the people”.
People Before Profit councillors nominated Kieran Mahon, who came seventh in the six-seat Tallaght Central, to fill the seat instead, with Cllr Jess Spear stressing that the move was “nothing personal against councillor Holohan or his nominee”.
“This vote is centrally about whether people should be able to stand in more than one ward and then appoint their nominee afterwards,” she said, adding that it would “encourage more independents to do this”.
Sinn Féin Cllr William Carey said he did not accept that “any councillor sitting in here should be beholden to another councillor” but this was “the situation that will develop”.
“Should people be able to run in multiple seats and then choose who they put into those seats? That is a bad sign for our democracy, and that would concern me greatly going forward,” he said.
Backing Mr Donnelly, Fianna Fáil’s Shane Moynihan said the situation was “not desirable” but he was “thankful that it is a very rare instance, and I have great hopes that this will not lead to any sort of a floodgate for candidates to co-opt members”.
In Fingal, Sinn Féin’s Ann Graves was nominated to fill the seat vacated by Marian Buckley, who resigned a month after the local elections due to medical advice.
