Councillor breached ethics Act with ‘racist, dangerous’ election material

An Independent councillor in Co Monaghan breached the Ethics in Public Office Act because of election material complainants said was “racist, dangerous and xenophobic”, an inquiry has found.

A leaflet issued by Cllr Séamus Treanor during the May 2019 local elections included statements about immigrants and housing that the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) has found were inaccurate.

The statements were “deliberate and considered and were designed to pit one group of the community against another,” an inquiry has found.

A solicitor for Cllr Treanor told a hearing held by Sipo in November that his client’s opinions were “a matter to be corrected by his political opponents, and not by Sipo”.

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However, in a report published on Wednesday, the commission said that while it acknowledged and respected the right of councillors under the Constitution to freely express their convictions and opinions, that provision was “subject to public order and morality”.

The right to freedom of expression cannot be presumed to extend to the freedom to publicise inaccurate statements targeting particular groups of people, it ruled.

In relation to leaflet, which contained the assertion that 92 per cent of refugees were “deemed to be bogus”, and that “criminals [are] coming into this country without background checks”, the commission found that the figure was not supported and that the language used by Cllr Treanor was deliberately emotive, open-ended and accusatory.

A false claim in the leaflet in relation to access to welfare benefits was calculated to “denigrate and anger”, the commission found.

An inaccurate claim in the leaflet in relation to the allocation of housing to economic migrants in Co Monaghan was found to be “particularly egregious” given the ease with which the councillor could have ascertained the true facts.

Code of conduct

The commission found that Cllr Treanor did not keep faith with the public trust and did not observe the highest ethical standards, contrary to the code of conduct for councillors, which councillors are obliged to observe under the Ethics in Public Office Act.

“The public has a right to trust that its local representatives will not spread inaccurate information unfairly targeting particular groups of people.

“In this instance, Councillor Treanor breached that trust and fell significantly below the standard the public would expect of him,” the Sipo report said.

“The respect held by the public for the office of county councillor and for the local authority as an organisation is, in the opinion of the commission, in danger of being seriously diminished and damaged when a sitting councillor issues leaflets such as this.”

It found that the conduct of Cllr Treanor was a serious contravention of the statutory provision and that he had not acted in good faith when preparing and issuing the election leaflet.

A copy of the Sipo report has been given to Cllr Treanor, the chief executive and cathaoirleach of Monaghan County Council, and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

The commission is chaired by former member of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan, who chaired the hearing held in November.