Archive News
Former Minister flew to Galway on state helicopter to tell us to ‘tighten our belts’!
Date Published: 25-Apr-2012
A Minister flew to Galway by Government helicopter, at taxpayers’ expense, and then preached a sermon about the need for local authorities to ‘tighten their belts’ and to reduce spending through “efficiency reviews”.
Newly released State records show that former Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Batt O’Keeffe, a cabinet Minister in the previous Fianna Fáil led administration, used the Government helicopter to fly from Phoenix Park in Dublin to Galway Airport.
The trip on the EC135 helicopter was made on September 1, 2010, and according to records it cost the taxpayer about €1,590 for the 50 minutes journey.
In a speech to a conference in Galway city later that day, Minister O’Keeffe made reference to how the country was experiencing a period of “constrained public spending”, and he talked about how his Government was working to “stabilise public finances”.
The then Minister had requested the aircraft from the Department of Defence and the request would have been cleared by An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen’s office.
Using one of the Government jets would have been far more expensive than helicopter, however, it is not known why Mr O’Keeffe didn’t travel to Galway by motorway in his Ministerial car.
The records show he did not return to Dublin by helicopter and it is understood his Ministerial driver would have travelled to Galway by road, as he travelled in the skies, and then chauffeured him on the return journey. “Helicopters have been used on occasion for Ministerial air transport in situations where, for operational reasons, fixed wing aircraft may not have been available or suitable for a particular mission,” said the current Justice and Defence Minister Alan Shatter.
Despite incurring costs of over €1,500, the then Minister O’Keeffe, who had been invited to open the 2010 Irish Manufacturing Council’s annual conference in Galway, told his audience how costs in local government should be pared back.
In his speech to business leaders at the conference, held at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT), Minister O’Keeffe said Ireland needed to improve its competitiveness to attract more Foreign Direct Investment.
“We are already seeing a recovery in cost-competitiveness with lower business costs, particularly wages and energy. We are reducing the administrative burden by driving better regulation. Local authority charges remain a great concern of the business sector and we will progress the recommendations of the recent efficiency review of the local authority system to secure savings which will further reduce pressure on business and ensure we can sustain and create jobs,” he said.
Mr O’Keeffe, in his speech, added: “Creating and protecting employment is the driving force behind so much of our work in stabilising our public finances and getting our banking system working again.
“It is the reason why in a time of constrained public spending we are continuing to invest so heavily in our capital programme in building necessary infrastructure and investing so much in enterprise, research and development.”
A Cork TD for over 20 years, Mr O’Keeffe did not stand for Fianna Fáil in the 2011 General Election. According to the records of ministerial travel by Government jet or helicopter, he was the only Minister in the last three years who used a Government jet or helicopter at taxpayers’ expense to fly to Galway on official Government business.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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