‘Come back for good, Ciarán, all is forgiven!’

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Come back Ciarán Hayes, all is forgiven: That appears to be the message from Fianna Fáil City Councillor Ollie Crowe.

Stop sniggering down the back of the class. Yes you, you messer.

Oliver is not joking; he’s deadly serious – he’s pining after Ciarán Hayes.

We kid you not.

Like the lead vocalist in boy band Take That, Ollie was singing for Ciarán: “Want you back, Want you back for good”.

Ollie reckons the place has gone to pot since Ciarán left for pastures new in Sligo.

This is the same Oliver Crowe who in a fit of rage once declared that the City Council – of which Ciarán Hayes was a leading member – “couldn’t run a bath”, never mind run the city.

But like everything else, it seems Ollie has only just discovered, as the song goes: “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”

Ciarán Hayes, you will recall, was the director of services for Infrastructure and Transportation (T&I) at Galway City Council before he took a plum job as the head honcho of the local authority up in Sligo.

Ollie reckons the T&I department at City Hall is missing Ciaran’s input. He even blamed traffic chaos recently on a lack of joined-up thinking in T&I.

“Hayes wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea,” said Ollie, in what must be contender for Bradley Bytes Understatement of the Year Award, “but he knew what he was at”.

Ollie was unhappy recently that unnecessary gridlock was caused because five separate roadworks were not co-ordinated by the City Council.

“It was pure chaos . . . It wouldn’t have happened if Hayes was here,” said Ollie.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened. But didn’t the traffic chaos and fallout from the changeover of Moneenageisha Roundabout to traffic lights happen on Ciaran’s watch?

Next Ollie will be telling us he wants former City Manager John Tierney, now head of Irish Water, to come back, too!

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.