Taxi driver Mayor ferries himself to functions!

It probably is quite fitting . . . a taxi driver and first citizen of the city who stays behind the wheel while on official duty in the mayoral car.

Since the end of June, Mayor Frank Fahy from Menlo, has had no driver for his official Volvo S80 diesel car, so he had no hesitation in driving it himself.

“I don’t have any airs or graces about this – I drive for a living and I love being behind the wheel, so it’s no big deal,” Mayor Fahy told the Galway City Tribune.

He did have an official driver for the first two weeks of his mayoral stint and apparently there’s another one being lined up from early September.

“It looks as if I’ll have a driver for the All-Ireland Hurling Final, but if I don’t, I’m sure I’ll manage to get there,” said Cllr. Fahy.

One of the trips that he drove himself on earlier this month was to Shannon where he picked up, in person, the Mayor of Menlo Park city in California.

“She was a lady by the name of Catherine Carlton and I also gave her a driving tour of the city – she was delighted to be driven around by the Mayor,” he said.

Over the past 25 years, Cllr. Fahy estimates that he has driven 1.5 million miles in his job as a taxi driver – he reckons that a few thousand more kilometres behind the mayoral wheel won’t be any burden to him.

“I grew up in a house in Menlo where we didn’t have a car so it was great thrill to me when sat I sat inside my first car.

“To this day, I regard driving as a pleasure – the only thing I have to be careful about is my right foot at times leaning too much on the accelerator pedal . . . but the speed vans keep reminding me of that,” quipped the Mayor.