Breandán,

While I have not agreed with everything you have said in your various posts on this matter, I think you have made an invaluable contribution to the debate and would think it would be a pity if you withdrew from this thread at this stage. You have a perspective which is, I think largely coloured by your involvement in Head Office, but you make your points well and articulately. It is a pity that HQ did not employ your talents in drafting the official statement, as I think you might have come up with a form of words that make more sense. You might even know the meaning of the words modus operandi and have used them, if at all, in a meaningful context.

That said I believe that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the running of the project that the Branch Mambership have been badly treated in this case, and the dissolution of the branch, as opposed to the Branch Committee was uncalled for. I am not familiar with the specific rules of Comhaltas and therefore don't know if dissolving the Committeee only was an option. In saying this I'm not necessarily accepting the premise that the running of the project warranted the dissolution of the committee either.

One final point on the Official statement - the statement that substantial fundraising from the Branch was not forthcoming is extremely dismissive of the massive fundraising efforts made by the Branch. While obviously EUR150,000 was a small amount in the context of the overall project cost, it is not an insignificant amount of money raised by a Branch of this size. I know you have acknowledged this fact in your earlier posts, but the statement fails to do so. I'm not sure what level of fundraising the Ardcomhairle would have conisdered subsantial, but the expectation of a much bigger sum of money seems a bit unreasonable to me.