Public smells a rat over Declan’s Royal Tara motion

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

The people of Galway may have been distracted by the Budget this week. But they haven’t lost their ability to smell a rat. And they know that something stinks about the sale of Royal Tara in Mervue.

On the eve of the giveaway Budget, a majority of Galway City Councillors voted to sell-off the lease to the historic building and lands in Mervue.

They made this decision Monday night without debate. Worse still, a majority of members present voted to block a proposal that would have facilitated debate. Democrats, my arse!

This, at the very least, fuels suspicions about their motives. Why, oh why, oh why would they sell off the city’s publicly-owned assets to private developers?

Especially when there was no appetite among the general public for this facility to be offloaded. In fact – a straw poll by local Sinn Féin councillor Mairéad Farrell showed the majority (89%) in Mervue wanted it kept in public ownership.

But only Mairéad and the two other Shinners on the Council opposed the sale, which was proposed by former PD, now Independent, Declan McDonnell.

Catherine Connolly (Ind) supported the Shinners’ proposal to debate but this was ignored by their colleagues who evidently don’t feel the need to explain themselves.

Nobody is suggesting any councillor who voted for to sell Royal Tara did anything untoward, or stands to gain personally from it. And certainly nobody is suggesting brown paper bags were exchanged.

But in politics, when you make a decision, the very least that you are expected to do is explain that decision in the chamber – especially when it is public money and assets.

If you have the conviction to stand over a decision, then at least have the backbone to debate it.

Instead, our elected community leaders ran for the hills. Pushed through the vote without debate. No explanation. No reasoning. No consideration of opposing views. Nothing.

As Shakespeare might put it: There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.

But sure, your elected representatives think you’ll be so distracted by the Budget, so punch drunk from the return of the fiver or tenner that they pilfered from your pockets during the economic crisis, that you won’t notice they sold it off, without debate.

And then they wonder why you’re so cynical.

Unsporting coalition partners

The grants for the Sports Capital Programme were released Friday, bang on time for the good news to ‘sink in’ ahead of the general election.

Some €2.3 million was given to 49 sports clubs in Galway. If you do the math, that’s a lot of votes.

Although, surprisingly enough, the clubs that weren’t successful were quite vocal about it online – the Government may lose as many votes as it wins through sports grants’ sweeteners.

Unsurprisingly, given that the Junior Minister for Sport, Michael Ring, is a Fine Gaeler, the local Blueshirts were first with the good news. In fact, Labour appears to have been completely taken aback by the announcement, and its people locally didn’t get to piggy-back on the good news.

What was more surprising is the Blueshirts who sent press releases about it; and those that didn’t.

Galway West TDs Sean Kyne and Brian Walsh, as well as Senator Hildegarde Naughton and Galway East TD Ciaran Cannon, all sent the usual PR stuff to media outlets “welcoming” the ‘dosh’.

But on Friday, there wasn’t a peep out of John O’Mahony, who is running in Galway West, or Paul Connaughton, in Galway East.

Were they left behind and kept out of the loop by the Ringer? Not a bit of it – the two boys were actually miles ahead of the others. We hear Small Paul and John O were leaked the names of the lucky clubs about to be granted funding hours before Walsh, Kyne, Naughton or Cannon got wind of them.

And, instead of hot-tailing it to media outlets, they played it smart and phoned the clubs directly, gaining real kudos – and votes – by giving them the heads-up first. Cute hoors!

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