The Co Tipperary town feels left between a rock and a hard place in being expected to welcome athletes from Hong Kong, writes Nuala Haughey.
Clonmel's public figures are ill at ease in the limelight that has shone on them since Tuesday night, when the Co Tipperary town decided that it no longer wanted to host Special Olympians from SARS-afflicted Hong Kong next month. The mayor is holding squarely to the borough council's decision, but he looks a bit hassled. The chairman of the host-town organising committee cannot hide his disappointment. The local independent TD, Seamus Healy, stands in the pretty town centre, collecting donations for a local good cause and resolutely refusing to comment to The Irish Times.
Few will dispute that there is significant local support for the council's unanimous decision, at a specially convened meeting, to recommend that Hong Kong's 61-member delegation not travel to the town next month because of the deadly threat posed by SARS. But there are criticisms, too, that the councillors' decision was a panicky response to a threat that has not yet been fully assessed by health experts and that the council, which has no statutory role in the issue, should have kept its powder dry for a couple of weeks. For the councillors who made the decision, it appears they would have been doubly damned had they not taken a stand only to see a SARS case then emerge in the town.
The mayor, Niall Dennehy of Fianna Fáil, walks into Niamh's coffee shop on Mitchell Street, his expression a mixture of relief that a nettle has been grasped and disappointment that he will not, as one of his final official functions, be greeting the athletes at Dublin Airport on June 17th and escorting them back to his pretty medieval town on the banks of the River Suir.
It is clear that Dennehy, an affable self-employed businessman, had been getting it in the neck from locals, whose fears about the spread of the infectious and potentially fatal disease could not go unheard. The advice of the Department of Health and Children to adopt a wait-and-see attitude had been undermined, he says, by the fact that the infection rate and death toll have continued to rise in Hong Kong, despite official word that it had peaked.
Dennehy points to Clonmel's proud tradition of twinning with towns around the world - it has six twins, from Italy to Illinois - before saying solemnly: "We are so, so sympathetic to the plight that these athletes and people from Hong Kong find themselves in. Our hearts go out to them, and it is with deep regret that we find ourselves in the situation that we are in. Of paramount importance to us in our community is public health and people's lives."
He rejects the opinion of Micheál Martin, the Minister for Health and Children, and Mary Harney, the Tánaiste, that the councillors' decision was premature, in advance of health-authority advice based on the opinion of the World Health Organisation. To make matters worse, the host committee of Greystones, in Co Wicklow, has offered to accommodate the Hong Kong team in addition to the 40 Croatians it is already expecting.
If Dennehy is worried about ministerial opprobrium, he certainly doesn't show it. "They are entitled to their opinions, but I, as first citizen, was taking my instructions from the elected members, who in fairness to them are acting in good faith on behalf of the community that they serve," he says firmly.
The mayor acknowledges that the council has no legal authority to say the team must stay away. So what if they come? "We can't do anything then." He adds that he would be concerned that the SARS issue might in any case have dissipated public goodwill.
Out on the pedestrianised Mitchell Street, Healy sips a take-away coffee while collecting money for the Carrick River Rescue team, which maintains an inflatable boat, rescuing people who fall into the Suir river and recovering bodies. He banters jovially but repeatedly refuses to be drawn. "I'm saying nothing," he says. Healy is a member of the borough council but was in Dublin when Tuesday's meeting was held. In a subsequent phone call, all Healy is prepared to say is that the situation has to be kept under review and that he can understand people's concern, particularly given the way the Minister for Health and his department have "fumbled" the issue.
In a nearby office is the chairman of the town's Special Olympics organising committee, Willie O'Donnell. A lifelong community volunteer with a faintly priestly air, he says the committee had agreed last Monday to put its preparations on hold, because of the concern about SARS. It still has not taken a final decision. He hesitates before replying, in carefully measured words, to a question about his reaction to the council's decision.
"I suppose we'd be disappointed that the Hong Kong team is unlikely to come to Clonmel. That's all I can say, because of the amount of work that went in."
Although the borough council was entitled to make its decision, and there were strong local views about the issue, he says he "probably would have preferred" if they had adjourned the meeting for about 10 days, pending the World Health Organisation's advice.
He laments the fact that the town could lose the chance to interact with the Special Olympians, who are due to compete in athletics, aquatics, table tennis, badminton, bowling and gymnastics. But he still hopes that developments in the coming days could still allow the team to attend. With the whole debate about SARS, "what these special people can achieve is way down there," he says, gesturing towards the ground. "I won't say it's been minimised. The athletes have got lost in the whole thing . . . . That's a pity."
The only Hong Kong family in Clonmel owns the Emperor Palace Chinese restaurant, on Parnell Street. Ming Cheung, its 35-year-old manager, strongly supports the council's decision while regretting that it means he would lose the chance to socialise with his compatriots. He had been planning a feast for the delegation, with smoked salmon and Irish beef. "Who isn't disappointed?" he says. "Don't try to blame us. If somebody did get the virus, what would we do?"
There was talk in Clonmel that this week's decision could be overturned when the council gathers on Tuesday for its ordinary monthly meeting. It also still seems the Hong Kong team could be quarantined should they come to Clonmel or any other Irish town.
The SARS debate will continue, but a comment by one local struck a chord that went far beyond the town's 14th-century stone walls and this crisis. "Aren't people more concerned with the 'I' now rather than with the 'we'?"