Recent developments have seen aggrieved members of a prayer group who use the facility stage a ‘sit-in’ in the church; the Franciscans issue a statement requesting that “individuals illegally occupying the church” vacate the building, and now an “annoyed” local TD saying the provincial won’t meet him.
TD Mattie McGrath confirmed that he wrote to the Provincial of the Franciscans Fr Aidan McGrath to discuss the matter and the concerns of the locals, but this he says has been to no avail.
“I’ve written to Fr Aidan McGrath three times and I’m very annoyed that he hadn’t even the good grace to acknowledge my correspondence,” he said. “It’s very shameful to refuse to engage.
“I want to say that the relationship between the friars and the public was an excellent one and mutually beneficial. The number of people who attend the Mass on Tuesday is huge.
“I intend to go to Dublin to meet with Fr McGrath if I can,” he said. “Issuing a public statement didn’t help the matter. With the sit-in, health and safety was mentioned as an issue but there’s no health and safety threat whatsoever. We should have an amicable solution and negotiation rather than a bland PR statement that was pretty callous and disappointing coming from the Franciscans. It’s a real pity that the relationship has deteriorated.”
Patrick O’Gorman, a member of Abbey house of Prayer Group that has staged a “sit-in” in the church, challenged some of the claims in the Franciscan’s statement.
“The Franciscans gave a statement which we believe was a very unfair statement because they’ve twisted the facts in that statement.
“They did tell us it was closing as a committee but we were bound by confidentiality and that they would make the announcement themselves on December 20.
“Now they’re bringing into the public domain something that was confidential, which is very unfair” he said.
Mr O’Gorman who said they had also written to Fr Aidan McGrath and received no reply said the church’s future can be safeguarded and that solutions were put forward to help ensure this but those solutions haven’t been taken up.
“All we want is for them to come to the table and talk about this and they’re refusing to do it. It’s a crying shame what they’re doing.”