A majority of members of Killarney Town Council walked out of a meeting on Monday night after the mayor refused to continue with a motion on a planning issue concerning the town's main benefactors, the McShain family.
The Mayor, Mr Michael Courtney, had allowed the rezoning motion to be seconded but he halted any discussion of the issue, citing standing orders which, he said, prevented discussion unless four councillors signed the motion.
The signatures of five councillors were then presented but Mr Courtney said they should have been submitted prior to the meeting.
He said he would allow the motion in January, if properly submitted.
The town manager, Mr Tom Curran, had advised the mayor his ruling was incorrect and the town's development plan, adopted in October, could be amended.
A Fianna Fáil councillor, Mr Pat O'Connor, and Labour councillor Mr Seán Counihan, who had put down the motion, led the walkout.
The application to allow low-density housing on five acres of property belonging to the McShain family, who donated the lakes of Killarney, Ross Castle and Island and thousands of acres of demesne and parkland to Killarney for a nominal sum, has been ongoing for some time.
The site is alongside an area of high-density housing, and adjacent to the town's sewage treatment plant. At a previous meeting, a "residents' petition" objecting to the application turned out to be substantially made up of names from outside the area. Councillors claimed they were also misled into believing the OPW would have no interest in a gift of around 17 acres of land, the remaining McShain lands.
Sister Pauline McShain, the only daughter of the late Mr John McShain and his wife Mrs Mary McShain, has expressed her disappointment and hurt at a surprise move earlier in the year to block the low-density development of 12 houses.
Her parents' relationship with Killarney had always been positive, she said. She recalled her father's belief that "it wasn't right" that buildings such as Inisfallen monastery and Ross Castle should be in private hands and he handed them over to the State.
It was "appalling to the family" now, that with only 21 acres left out of thousands they had given to the State for a nominal sum, they could not develop over four acres, she said.