Charge against Rabbitte thrown out

The Labour Party has dismissed a complaint by former Sligo-Leitrim TD Declan Bree against party leader Pat Rabbitte.

A complaints committee has decided that no purpose would be served by proceeding with a full hearing into an allegation that Mr Rabbitte had brought the party into disrepute when he wrote a letter to The Irish Times in which he made allegations about Cllr Bree, which the Sligo councillor has described as false and scurrilous.

The committee said that facts outlined by Cllr Bree "came nowhere near meeting the standard" for a breach of article 14 of the party's constitution.

It found that Labour's general secretary had acted properly in referring the complaint to the committee, but said it had decided not to hold a further meeting because no purpose would be served by further consideration of the complaint.

Cllr Bree yesterday described the committee's decision as "appalling".

The complaint, which underlined the increasing tension between him and the party leader, was made last month in response to Mr Rabbitte's claim in the letter to The Irish Times that the former TD had tried to block Traveller accommodation in his ward.

Cllr Bree said that the failure to validate a complaint of such a serious nature "raises the most serious questions about the current lack of openness and accountability in the Labour Party".

He did not allow his name to go forward at the recent party convention in Sligo and said that he would not contest a general election for Labour as long as Mr Rabbitte remained as party leader.

In his complaint to the general secretary, Cllr Bree said Mr Rabbitte had falsely accused him of trying to stop Traveller accommodation going into his own ward and attempting to put it into that of a colleague.

"This must surely be the first occasion in the history of the Irish Labour Party that a party leader has attempted to vilify and smear a party colleague in such a manner," he said.

Following Friday's meeting of the complaints committee, its secretary, Dermot Lacey, wrote to Cllr Bree with the decision.

Last month a party complaints committee upheld a complaint against Cllr Bree after he refused to apologise for publicly criticising a decision by his colleagues to vote against Sligo's Traveller accommodation programme.

One of the two people criticised by Cllr Bree, former Fine Gael councillor Jim McGarry, has been nominated to contest the election for Labour in Sligo-North Leitrim.

While speculation is mounting that Cllr Bree may stand as an Independent in the constituency, he has yet to declare his intentions.

He described the decision to reject his complaint as "a very worrying development" for the Labour Party.