The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) has branded the silencing of their Councillor by Sinn Fein on Fermanagh and Omagh District Council as “an obvious attempt to silence, intimidate and bully.”
At a council meeting on Tuesday, Sinn Fein councillors voted to silence UUP Councillor Mark Ovens for the remainder of the meeting, after he raised concerns about moving to an online-only booking system for household recycling centres.
Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Ovens said: “I’ve been on record before about being deeply uncomfortable, and I don’t support that move.”
“I don’t use this word lightly, even what I feel was an underhanded way in which this council took the decision, whenever I raised this issue a number of months ago, councillors from other parties openly told me they didn’t know the decision had been taken, but yet this council is proceeding even though it wasn’t subject to full and genuine debate within this chamber” he continued.
He asked for a timescale for the introduction and how the council would engage with ratepayers about the decision.
Sinn Fein councillor Anne Marie Donnelly then said: “I want to call out the use of language, underhand decisions, I would object to that profusely, and I would ask the chief executive if she could comment on that.”
Alison McCullagh, the chief executive of the council, said the claims were “completely inaccurate, entirely inappropriate and totally wrong.”
“It is completely wrong to suggest underhanded or any other mechanisms around decision making, the member may wish to reconsider those comments,” she added.
The chair of the council, Sinn Fein Councillor Barry McElduff, then asked Councillor Ovens if he wished to withdraw his comments, to which he replied: “No, I don’t, I raised a number of questions which I haven’t got answers to.”
Sinn Fein Councillor Coyle proposed a recess to discuss the comments, which was passed.
Councillor McElduff resumed the meeting by saying some members felt that the council was being brought into disrepute because of the comments made by Councillor Ovens, and again asked if he wished to withdraw his comments.
Councillor Ovens replied: “The dictionary definition of the word underhand is something that has been done in secret. On 2 October last year, this council took this decision in secret, because that’s what confidential is, when it had no real basis to be taken in secret.”
Then Councillor Coyle proposed that Councillor Ovens be silenced due to “his offensive behaviour in the council chamber”. The decision was taken to a vote, which passed with 20 votes in favour, seven against and eight abstentions.
‘Affront to democracy’
UUP deputy leader Robbie Butler MLA has since commented on the decision taken by Sinn Fein councillors.
“I’ve known Councillor Mark Ovens for many years and I was delighted when he was elected to Fermanagh and Omagh Council in 2023. As a young family man, I’ve always found him to be genuine and deeply proud of his Fermanagh roots.
“So the accusation made against him on Tuesday evening that he had somehow brought the Council into disrepute, for no other reason than simply challenging the Council for passing an important decision in secret, is just so totally bizarre.
“What then followed in the meeting, however, was a total and outrageous affront to democracy. The Sinn Fein grouping, which holds an outright majority on the Council, came together in an obvious attempt to silence, intimidate and bully Cllr Ovens from speaking up. Whilst they may have used their sheer dominance on the Council to succeed in preventing him from taking part in the rest of the meeting, if I know Mark, that won’t stop him from speaking up for local ratepayers.
“It’s also notable that the highly unusual move to silence him was made early into the first meeting being watched over by Sinn Fein’s newly appointed Council Chairman, Barry McElduff. This is the same Council Chairman who had to step down as an MP in disgrace in 2018 for causing huge upset and offence by disgustingly posting a video of himself in a shop with a loaf of Kingsmill bread on his head on the 42nd anniversary of the Kingsmills Massacre.
“This issue runs much deeper than just a local internal Council dispute. The Sinn Fein leadership now need to quickly come forward and clarify whether they stand by the disgraceful actions of their Fermanagh & Omagh members to censor fair and genuine debate, or whether they think that in Council’s where they have the majority and call all the shots it’s acceptable for them to throw their weight around to stamp out and silence any alternative viewpoints.”
– Robbie Butler MLA, UUP deputy leader
The meeting was live-streamed by the council, and it can be viewed below.
