Hildegarde has caught Lovely Lorraine’s bug

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column

Galway-based senator Hildegarde Naughton has caught the bug.

The ‘Shameless use of the Seanad to get elected to the Dáil bug’, that is.

Or as we in Bradley Bytes like to call it for short, the Lovely Lorraine Higgins’ bug, in honour of the Athenry-based senator who unashamedly uses her Taoiseach’s nomination to the Seanad as a springboard for her Dáil prospects in Galway East.

Not because Lorraine was first to be struck with the bug but because she’s one of the worst sufferers of it.

It was bound to happen to Hildegarde; and it was only a matter of time before it spread, what with her being in such close proximity to senators these past few weeks.

The bug manifests itself in Hildegarde in her press releases in which she signs off as “Senator Hildegarde Naughton, Fine Gael – Galway West Constituency”. Which is fine except it gives the impression that she’s a senator representing the Galway West constituency.

But there’s no such thing as constituencies based on geography in the Seanad, only the Dáil. Hildergade was appointed to the Seanad as the Taoiseach’s nominee.

She’s not there to represent the people of the Galway West Dáil constituency.

She knows it. Her political colleagues and foes know it. The electorate know it.

But that won’t stop her giving the impression she’s there to represent the voters in Galway West.

Sure what’s the point in being in the Seanad if you can’t use the position to get votes to get into the Dáil in the General Election, eh Hildegarde? Just ask Lovely Lorraine. 

Punch and Judy politics, Irish shtyle

How health politics works: man who wasn’t very good at his job, calls on the current man in the job, who isn’t very good at the job, to resign because he’s not very good at his job.

The man who is in the job even though he’s not very good at the job rejects the resignation calls from the guy who was in the job prior to him even though he wasn’t that good at it.

Man who calls for the resignation gets publicity.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.