New 30-word job title a mouthful for Seán

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

We thought Pat Breen, the Clare TD, had a long-winded title, and he does – Minister for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection.

But he hasn’t a patch on Galway West Fine Gael TD Seán Kyne, who according to a recent press release, is officially now known as the “Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment with responsibility for Natural Resources, Community Affairs, and Digital Development”.

Remember when they were just Pat and Seán?

Bypass name changing

On the subject of names. Junior Minister Sean Kyne – or Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment with responsibility for Natural Resources, Community Affairs, and Digital Development to give him his full title – informs us that the Galway City Outer Bypass has had a name-change.

It is now forever to be referred to as ‘The Galway Ring Road Project’, until the next time they change its name.

That doesn’t quite slip off the tongue as easily as ‘The Bypass’, which in reality is what it will always be known as no matter how often officials try to call it something else.

Just like Brown Thomas will always be Moon’s; University Hospital Galway will always be the Regional; and NUI Galway will always fondly be remembered as UCG.

Fianna Fáil thirst for high moral ground

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when Fianna Fáil Dáil Deputies and their buddies would drink champagne from wellington boots in their tent at the Galway Races.

Alas, it seems the current crop on the frontbench of butter-wouldn’t-melt Micheál Martin are much more restrained.

Galway East TD, Anne Rabbitte – the party’s frontbench spokesperson on children and youth affairs – issued a very un-Fianna Fáil statement this week warning of the “dangers of over-consumption of alcohol in advance of the Galway Races” while urging young people to “drink responsibly” at the seven-day festival.

Times, they are a changing.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.