Party adjourns Bree hearing

The Labour Party's hearing into former TD Declan Bree, who faces censure after a bitter row with fellow Sligo councillors, has…

The Labour Party's hearing into former TD Declan Bree, who faces censure after a bitter row with fellow Sligo councillors, has been adjourned until early October.

The disciplinary committee held a two-hour hearing yesterday.

Mr Bree is before the committee after he accused fellow Labour members of Sligo Borough Council of failing to agree to a Traveller halting site in the city.

The former TD, who was elected to the Dáil in 1992 but who lost his seat in 1997, is unlikely to be expelled from the party if the committee finds against him.

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Early this month, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte rejected charges that Mr Bree's Sligo colleagues had tried to discriminate against Travellers: "Cllr Bree is correct that Labour has a consistent and honourable record on the issue of accommodation for Traveller families. However, in Sligo Cllr Bree used his position as mayor to stop an accommodation site going into his own electoral ward and sought to put it into the ward of a colleague that already has three such sites."

Mark Hennessy

Mark Hennessy

Mark Hennessy is Ireland and Britain Editor with The Irish Times