Someone should teach Hildegarde how to vote

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

The Fine Gael cronyism scandal rumbles on.

The Budget might have taken the momentum out of it, but the toxic whiff of the ‘McNulty Affair’ still lingers.

A little nugget of information, relevant to Galway, missed in all of the ‘jobs for the boys’ fog, is Hildegarde Naughton, who once again missed a vote in Seanad Éireann.

Regular readers will recall that in July, the Government lost a vote on an amendment to legislation to give free GP care to children under six.

That was because Hildegarde missed the Seanad vote because she was up partying with the President at Phoenix Park.  The egg that was left on the Government’s face after losing that vote had only just been wiped away when the bould Hildegarde went and did it again.

Or, to be more exact, didn’t do what she was supposed to do, which is vote.

We hear that the Government lost a Seanad vote by 22 to 21 over the controversy about John McNulty and his appointment to IMMA.

Hildegarde, we’re told, wasn’t present and instead was in the west canvassing with the Fine Gael party’s Roscommon/Leitrim bye-election candidate.

Fat lot of good that did, eh. The Government was red-faced. But, we hear, Arts Minister Heather Humphreys was livid. Because losing the vote meant that Heather had to march back to the Seanad chamber where she took another grilling.

Hildegarde talks of “rebuilding the republic” in her constituency clinic advertisements.  Perhaps this republic is one where votes to get elected are prioritised over those votes you’re supposed to participate when you’re actually elected and in power.

Ming’s mob aims Cannon at Ciaran

While we’re on the subject of the bye-elections. We all know the only thing worse than a sore loser, is a sore winner. And what could be worse than a sore winner? Both a sore loser and a sore winner. Or, to be more precise, losing and winning sides in public spats. Very public spats.

Tuam County Councillor, a protégée of Luke ‘Ming the Merciless’ Flannagan, Michael Fitzmaurice, and former Minister of State, Fine Gael’s Ciaran Cannon, decided to wash their dirty laundry in public.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.