Sinn Fein councillor resigns town council seat due to illness

SINN Fein Councillor Mags McGivern has resigned her seat on Trim Town Council due to ill health less than two years after being co-opted onto the council.

Her stepping down follows the resignation of her predecessor, Caroline Ni Lionsaigh, two years ago.

This means that Sinn Fein will be on its third town councillor since the 2004 local elections, when Caroline Ni Lionsaigh first won a seat on Trim Town Council. She resigned in 2005 because of family commitments and Mags McGivern was co-opted to take her seat.

Colr McGivern has not attended a Trim Town Council monthly meeting since October 2006. If a councillor does not attend a meeting for six months, they are deemed to have resigned. However, last March, trim town councillors agreed to extend Colr McGivern's membership of the town council because of her ill health and wished her a speedy recovery.

Ms McGivern's membership was due to expire again at the October meeting of Trim Town Council and would have required councillors to once again extend her membership to keep her seat.

Last week, the Sinn Fein Party announced that Colr McGivern was to resign because of health reasons.

Colr McGiven wished to thank all the people who supported and helped her in her role, a Sinn Fein statement said. "It was a great honour to represent the people of Trim and so it is with some disappointment that I have made this decision. However, the people of Trim need and deserve the best representation possible and due to ill health, I am unable to continue to provide this."

Ms McGivern also thanked her colleagues in Sinn Fein for their help and support and said she looked forward to working within the party in the future.

Leas cathaoirleach of Sinn Féin's Meath Comhairle Ceantar, Peadar Tóibín, said that the Sinn Féin organisation in Meath was disappointed to hear that Ms McGivern would be resigning from the council. He said: "We in the party and many of the constituents of Trim are very grateful for all the hard work Ms McGivern put in during her time as councillor."

He added that he and his colleagues wished her improved health and looked forward to working with her in the future.

The Sinn Fein party is currently organising a replacement, which must be passed at cumann, comhairle and ard comhairle level. Mr Tóibín said they hoped to have this finalised by 6th October. It is understood that the party has someone in mind to replace Ms McGivern, though Mr Tóibín did not want to say who this was at this stage.