No grá for Gaeilge as FG sums don’t add up

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Local politicians love to announce good news. Or love to be associated with good news announcements.  It’s an ego-boosting thing. And a vote-grabbing exercise.

Politicians often trip over each other to get their press releases about positive announcements – like new jobs – into media organisations.

They don’t always get it right.

Take the announcement last week of funding for Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe.

Non-Irish speaking Gaeltacht Minister Joe McHugh said that he had approved, “an operational grant of €320,000 per annum for Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe for the period 2015-2017”.

That’s €960,000 over the three years. And an annual €20,000 increase on the €300,000 it had received in 2014.

But two local politicians apparently can’t count.

A press release from Galway West TD, Brian Walsh, warmly welcomed the announcement but indicted that the amount was €320,000 spread over three years.

His Fine Gael party colleague, Senator Hildegarde Naughton, too, said it was €320,000 over three years.

If they had bothered to check, they would have known that a grant of €320,000 for three years (roughly €106,500 each year for three) would have been a reduction in the order of 66% on what it had got last year.

So, in effect, Brianeen and Hildegarde – both fairly intelligent people, you’d have thought – were effectively welcoming savage cuts to the budget of Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe.

It was noted, too, that both of them issued their statements in English only, and included not even a token bit of Gaeilge.

Strange, for two politicians whose press releases conveyed their deep sense of commitment to and connection with, the national Irish language theatre.

Níl aon náire orthu!

When Miriam Meets Pádraig

Publicity-hungry Galway city councillor Pádraig Conneely (FG) isn’t backward in coming forward.

He’s a pretty shameless self-promoter. Never misses a trick when it comes to putting himself ‘out there’.

The bould Pádraig is renowned for having his photograph taken with a ‘celebrity’, which he then uses in promotional and election literature.

Who will ever forget his leaflet in which he is posing in the White House alongside US President Barack Obama and the first lady, Michelle?

It was priceless; and gave the impression to voters that Pádraig was being endorsed by the most powerful couple on the planet.

His latest ‘celebrity’ photo shoot is with RTÉ presenter, Miriam O’Callaghan.

Pádraig cornered Miriam at the Local Authority Members Association Community Awards held in Dublin on Saturday. And then he got his party colleague from Cavan, Councillor Seán McKiernan, to take a photo.

Pádraig didn’t win any awards at the event even though he’s smiling as if he’s just won the lotto. He’s smitten with Miriam or maybe the bubbly in that glass has gone to his head.

Miriam looks happy enough, too. It couldn’t be confirmed that the smile was induced by the positioning of Pádraig’s right hand.

But will she, and her supposedly politically neutral employer, RTÉ, still be smiling when Miriam’s mug appears on Pádraig’s latest election literature, purporting to endorse him?

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