Goat capture and council meetings both taking too long, Cork councillors say

Standing orders were suspended at this week’s meeting of Cork City Council to hear a motion from Labour councillor John Maher on a recurring issue of loose goats in his ward, but due to an ongoing issue within the council itself, the discussion was cut short.

Ahead of each monthly council meeting, an agenda is circulated, containing matters the executive puts to council for approval — such as housing or renovation projects — and motions which the councillors have submitted in advance.

If a councillor wants to raise a topical issue that is not in the agenda, they must ask to suspend standing orders, which is voted on by councillors.

Mr Maher received unanimous support, which was somewhat unusual, but in the end, timekeeping led to disagreements.

All recent council meetings have seen bitter debates about how long the meetings were going on, with some councillors seeking to finish the meeting before all business had concluded, while others point out that the debates about when to finish the meeting often take longer than it would to simply go through all the motions.

With five motions left to be heard, the Lord Mayor councillor Dan Boyle called for Mr Maher to speak on the goat issue as it was approaching 9pm, when councillors had agreed to conclude.

At the previous council meeting, Mr Maher had been told that the council had appointed a specialist contractor to deal with a group of goats grazing on public lands adjoining roads including the North Ring Rd.

As of the start of March, €11,000 had been spent on attempting to capture the goats, with Paul Moynihan, director of local area development and operations, explaining at the time: “The work involved is necessarily time-consuming involving many man hours, as successful removal involves being able to work very closely near the goats and establish their trust prior to capture.”

Speaking at the most recent meeting, Mr Maher explained that the issue had been going on for months, and seven goats remained at large.

He told The Echo: “These goats are running across the North Ring Rd, housing estates in Ballyvolane, the business park, the fire station and the council depot. We’re only waiting for a serious accident to happen... I’m actually embarrassed as a city councillor that these seven goats are continuing to get the better of us.

“We don’t know who owns them — it’s an animal welfare issue first, but also a public safety issue.

“We’re letting them navigate the city, affecting residents, public transport, workers... enough is enough, we need to get the god damn goats and get them safe.”

Agreement 

Several councillors spoke on the issue in agreement with Mr Maher, and he told The Echo he was pleased with the support and that they had allowed the suspension of standing orders.

However, 9pm struck, and despite four councillors waiting to speak on the goats issue and five motions still to be heard, the Lord Mayor asked councillors how they wished to proceed.

Fianna Fáil councillors suggested they would hear the next four speakers on the goats then end the meeting, while the majority of the other councillors were in favour of hearing all motions.

Fine Gael’s Shane O’Callaghan put forward a compromise, that they extend the meeting until 9.30pm and try to get everything done in that time.

As the Fianna Fáil amendment was suggested first, it had to be voted on first, and it failed to reach the two thirds majority. Next was Mr O’Callaghan’s amendment, which got 17 votes in favour, with the Fianna Fáil councillors voting against it.

It needed 17.3 votes.

As a result, no agreement was reached, and councillors left the meeting just before 9.10pm without reaching the end of the goat discussion or hearing the other motions.

Mr Maher said it was “disgraceful that the council didn’t get to finish its business”, adding that he would be sitting down with his party members, Social Democrats and Green Party councillors to try to find a way to ensure the council finish all scheduled motions.

Fine Gael’s Shane O’Callaghan told The Echo that he was also in favour of the meetings running as long as they had to so that all business was finished.

“It was essentially Fianna Fáil against every other party on Monday night, they are stifling debate around very important issues like the goats,” he said.

Acknowledged 

He acknowledged that there were issues around the “non statutory” motions at the end of the meeting, which relate to things the council doesn’t have the authority to address directly, which some councillors have deemed “irrelevant”.

“These non-statutory motions can also be of great use, Uisce Éireann finally came before the council because of repeated non-statutory motions demanding they do just that.”

There were also some statutory motions which also didn’t get to be heard on Monday night.

Motions not heard included one from Fianna Fáil’s Seán Martin on the condition of city footpaths, Labour’s Ciara O’Connor on the 30 month waiting time for autism assessments for children in the city, Sinn Féin’s Kenneth Collins on housing, and a motion relating to the old Cork Prison submitted by his party colleague Michelle Gould.

Unacceptable

Fianna Fáil’s Terry Shannon said council meetings running until 10 or 11pm is unacceptable.

“If we can’t get our business done in three hours, we have to look at ourselves.

“Meetings drag on until 10 or 11 with things that are nothing to do with city council,” he said.

“It needs to be better streamlined, we shouldn’t have 19 councillors getting up to repeat what the previous speaker said, thinking they’re in UCC debating society.”