Crowe lets fly: future will be full of ‘muppets’ at City Hall!

Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column with Dara Bradley

Only ‘muppets’ will put their names forward for local elections in five or ten years’ time. So says Mike Crowe, a Fianna Fáil city councillor and former mayor, first elected in 2004.

Leaving aside those wits who might take a dim view of the calibre of people currently at City Hall, MJ Crowe has a point.

Why would you bother putting your name on a ballot paper?

Take Mayor Mike Cubbard, for example. We won’t rehash the abuse and death threats he received but all councillors get stick, and many are harangued online.

This isn’t ordinary, run-of-the-mill stuff. Criticism of a political point of view, or disagreement with policies, is necessary for democracy.

But social media has coarsened – nay, poisoned – debate. Local elected members can’t say anything on social media now without being lambasted. It is corrosive to the democratic process . . . good people, who have a lot to offer politics and society, are afraid of getting involved.

Councillors unfortunate enough to be on Twitter, or Facebook, are contactable 24/7 by their constituents and anonymous trolls. Morning, noon and night they take abuse.

And for what? Feck all pay, relatively, and diminishing powers – management at City Hall increasingly call the shots.

“As a result of all governments, the power of local officials has strengthened every year. The role of the councillor is being diluted every year,” MJ told us.

“That’s the problem with the system at the moment – and I’d blame our crowd (Fianna Fáil) as much as any other crowd, for that. What I’m talking about there, allied to the hassle that public representatives are getting off the public, I’m telling you, in another five or 10 years, you’ll have muppets as councillors trying to run the place, or trying to influence the running of the place. Because any person in their sane mind, wouldn’t get involved in this business any more. It’s true.

“People think they are entitled to say what they like, where they like, to who they like, about you. And because you’re a public rep – it doesn’t matter what colour you are, by the way, it’s all the one to some of them – it’s fair game to call you a c**t, or a w***er or a pr**k on social media.

“In another 10 years, who will we have representing us, say at government level, the way it’s going? They won’t have their Junior Cert got – that’s the way it’s going!”

A bleak outlook, indeed.

(Photo: Cllr Mike Crowe: The role of the councillor is being diluted every year, while some people think local representatives are fair game for abuse).
For more Bradley Bytes, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.