These are the best of times and the worst of times, a more learned scribe than Grassroots once opined.
Definitely the best of times if you’re a politics-watcher in these parts. As the sage town crier (sorry town clerk or senior executive something or other ) warned the Kerry Blue on Monday night, there’ll be a lot of this sort of stuff going on for the next few months.
Cllr Obama O hArgain was accusing the FF lads of political grandstanding and the ever witty Boro Tyrrell drily remarked that this was only the start of things. Needless to mention the Kerry Blue wouldn’t engage in any of those tactics himself!
Best of all however on the night was Monsignor Coonan’s continuing obsession with matters of the ‘nether regions’. The Monsignor was very concerned about the opening of the new ‘convenience’ as he euphemistically calls it on the parade, and then went on to highlight the plight of those poor people who couldn’t pee in the market yard. All sorts of alternatives were discussed including the possibility of a ‘super-loo’ on Batemen Quay until the bould Tipperary John informed us that such a plush facility would cost a quarter of a million euro, around the expenses and salary of Minister MacG roughly! Queue all sorts of jokes and jibes about how many pennies or cents would be spent to come up with that kind of dosh. Cllr Brett the Indistinct joined in with a sombre lecture on urinary tract infections, but it was left to Community Marie to step into the Joe Cody breach. While very funny in private, the public rarely see the wicked wit of the former two-time Mayor, but her suggestion that the chain be handed to the Monsignor so he could officially open the new loos on the parade (not pull the chain mind you! ) brought the house down. Hopefully the Monsignor will accept this magnanimous reaching across the floor, if he can take an hour off from his charitable duties in the Village Enterprise centre!
As to what the current chain-holder is up to, who knows? Pat the Baker is definitely one of the least visible mayors for years, although this might change in the coming months of our 400 celebrations……what you didn’t know??!! The Baker’s concentration on the cousin’s campaign is probably taking up a lot of his time. As for ‘Smiler’ Fitzgerald himself, he’s turning up to every meeting and opening of an envelope he’s told about, but as one wag mentioned last week-sure what else would an auctioneer be doing for the next few months.
Cowen refused to do anything as radical as actually cut the Ministers for small cars and self-importance last week, so O’ Loughlin Road remains the centre of the universe as far as the Macs are concerned. True all twelve of Minister MacG’s staff will have to pay their pension levy on their combined €750,000 earnings, including Mini Mac Light of course, but sure we know that the money is far better spent up there than employing thirteen nurses, teachers or guards! It’s far better to have the constituents’ queries about housing written up and passed on (to landlords close by who can meet their every need ) than to actually build the two houses every year that the lads and lassies wages would pay for.
Finally back to the grandstanding. After all the huffing and puffing the good people of John Street will continue to have the 15 minutes peace to run in for a padlock in Billy Brett’s or a lump of bacon in John Joe Cullen’s that they always had. Grassroots never saw such a silly attempt to create a campaign out of nothing, and would love to meet the person who ever got a ticket within a quarter of an hour of legally!! parking in a pay park area of the city. O’ Loughlin Road’s Reidy winger, whose brother has joined the Green ship Dunbrody did his best to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by claiming that everyone had bowed to FF’s superior knowledge on the matter, until the Kerry Blue spoke up for the Government side of the house to remind him that it was all a ball of smoke anyway, following the town clerk’s subtle ‘No we can’t’ intervention. Doubtless the team were out claiming on Tuesday that ‘we looked after ye lads’, but even the blindest would see through this one. So a major ‘political stunt’ disappeared into the mist. Methinks the FF Teams will have to come up with something better than that to keep the public and private servants off their backs in May and early June.
