FORMER SDLP councillor Paul Doherty has stood over the reasons he cited for his resignation from the SDLP after a People Before Profit councillor questioned his motives.
The West Belfast councillor resigned from the party on Saturday after SDLP councillors abstained from a crucial vote on Thursday evening at a specially convened meeting at City Hall where councillors voted through a DUP motion to reconsider a decision to close a planning enforcement investigation over a statue of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.
The statue was unveiled in May last year beside the Republican Garden on Gardenmore Road in Twinbrook. Bobby Sands, who was from the area, was elected MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone just prior to his death on hunger-strike while in prison in Long Kesh in May 1981.
The DUP motion passed with 27 votes for, 22 against and three no votes from the Green Party. The SDLP members did not vote.
In his resignation statement on Saturday afternoon Cllr Doherty said he had not attended the council meeting on Thursday evening as he "was dealing with an emerging issue in the community".
However, People Before Profit councillor Michael Collins has questioned Cllr Doherty's motives, branding the resignation as a "self-serving move."
"In Paul Doherty's resignation statement, he claimed he disagreed with his party position. Yet as an elected representative, he offered no word of public objection to his party’s position prior to the meeting," said Cllr Collins.
Cllr Michael Collins
"Doherty’s claim comes under even more doubt today, following Claire Hannah's confirmation that all SDLP councillors were involved in discussions ahead of the Council meeting and all had the opportunity to put forward a view.
"Doherty had every opportunity to attend the meeting or speak out beforehand but like every other SDLP councillor he absconded from the vote. His insistence in his resignation statement that the meeting was “hastily organised” is also false.
"All 60 councillors were notified by email four days in advance of the meeting. The date and time of the meeting was also published on the Belfast City Council website four days in advance.
"The notion that any councillor could have been caught off guard by this meeting is a fanciful attempt at political spin. Ultimately Doherty’s resignation is a self-serving move designed to admonish himself of the public backlash.
"If we are to win real change for the people of West Belfast we need principled elected representatives committed to offering a genuine political alternative to the big parties. Not the same old disingenuous politics of the establishment."
When contacted by the Andersonstown News Paul Doherty defended his decision to resign.
"Parties have internal disagreements all the time which don’t result in walk-outs or resignations. This was different. This to me, as a person from West Belfast was a matter of principal and about taking a stand.
"It wasn’t an easy decision after nine years in the party – but I believe it was the right decision. I am from this community and I feel what everyone else feels here about this and how this statue of Bobby Sands holds real significance.
"I am working in an environment day and night where I am face-to-face with people at their lowest ebb and living in crisis. I have missed meetings or arrived late as a result.
"Although the dynamics of meetings change throughout the duration of debate, I stand by my view that I would have voted against the DUP motion if there. There was a lot of political point scoring and cheap shots directed at me which wrongfully state I was at the meeting and voted a certain way or abstained when that was not the case.
"This point scoring continues, but I am focused on my work in the community and representing the people of West Belfast as I have always done."
Speaking on the BBC on Monday SDLP leader Claire Hanna said she was "gutted" at Mr Doherty's resignation from the party.
"It was a DUP/Sinn Féin discussion, we tried to put down an amendment that absolutely didn't support the DUP motion which was hypocritical in the extreme. We tried to set out an alternative that about the fairest possible approach.
"It was a mess, it was another bun fight and sham fight... more sectarian coat-trailing."
