The chairperson of Waterford Fianna Fáil says that the process of filling their two vacant seats on Waterford Council is currently ongoing.
The first seat was one that had been occupied by the late Deputy Mayor of Waterford, Cllr. James Tobin, who died suddenly in July.
Cllr. Eddie Mulligan’s resignation earlier this week has now freed up a second seat for the party.
Speaking to WLR News, the party’s Waterford chairperson Seán Dower explained the process that has to be gone through once the party members in both electoral areas have been contacted.
“You have to first of all write to all the members in the area. You give them a set number of days and wait for their replies back to see who they may be nominating. Then you would have to notify those who’ve been nominated, to give them an amount of time to canvass. Then you would have the convention. It would be a proper voting convention if there was more than one person nominated.”
Mr. Dower says it is the hope of the party that the vacant seats will be filled sometime in the next month.
“Our intention is, and my hope would be, that we would fill both seats as early as possible in September. Unfortunately, the August month is a holiday month for most people - so it’ll take a little bit longer. My earnest hope is that both seats would be filled during the month of September.”
Dower also paid tribute to the work of Cllr. Eddie Mulligan who resigned on Monday to take up a position within the local authority.
“We’d like to thank Eddie for his work over the last number of years. It was a bit of shock to us all in Fianna Fáil on Monday when we heard the news - but we have to work along with it now and get over that. The same system as applies to the late James Tobin’s seat will apply in Eddie’s seat. The hope would be that we would have both seats filled as early as possible in September.”
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