Critic Connolly is Cat who got the cream!

Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column with Dara Bradley

The cynics among us, if we didn’t know better, might say that the Government lost the vote on Leas-Cheann Comhairle on purpose, rather than by mistake, so as to silence one of the sharpest TDs in Dáil Éireann, and a most vocal and articulate critic of this and the previous Governments.

Alas, even the cynics are all too aware that the current Government hasn’t the capability or capacity to intentionally pull off such a Machiavellian feat, even if it wanted to.

No. Fergus O’Dowd (FG) losing out to Galway West TD, Catherine Connolly (Ind), in a vote on who would become the deputy speaker of the Dáil, was not calculated to sideline Cat Connolly.

It was just another cock-up by the new Coalition of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party that has dithered, stumbled and slept on the job – literally – since it threw together a programme for Government last month.

The upshot may be the same, though. As Leas-Cheann Comhairle, Cat Connolly, the Claddagh Queen, will be non-partisan in the chair. Her personal opinions and take on life will no longer be relevant when she’s deputising for Seán Ó Fearghaíl.

Of course, when she’s not chairing Dáil debates, Connolly is entitled to have her say.

But will she continue to be outspoken? Can you tear lumps out of An Taoiseach Micheál Martin at Leaders’ Questions in the morning, and then expect to be viewed as a neutral arbitrator of contentious debates in the afternoon?

While not wishing to take away from Cat Connolly’s achievement of becoming the first ever woman to be elected into the position – shocking really that it’s taken 101 years to break that particular glass ceiling – from a purely selfish perspective, we hope parliament hasn’t ‘lost’ one of its most effective Deputies to what is an important but impartial role.

She will still be able to submit Parliamentary Questions, and there’s no way Cat Connolly could be fully silenced. But the Public Accounts Committee, in particular, will be less effective in the absence of her razor-sharp analysis, and forensic questioning of waste of public money.
For more Bradley Bytes, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.