Local media in a city the size of Galway are usually vicious gossips, notorious for undermining each other, despite secretly yearning to mate, but to be fair to Galway Bay FM, it did Galway West some service this week, when its radio staffers staged by far the best set piece of the by-election.
There was only one winner at Galway Bay FM’s monster by-election debate on Monday, and it was not any of the 16 candidates (of total 17 ) who showed up.
The station’s morning presenter, John Morley, had clearly done his homework, and his snippy questions rattled all by-election candidates present at the Galmont Hotel on a cold, wet evening, including exposing some candidates who equally clearly had not learned their own obair bhaile.
Patrick Feeney (Ind ) was the only candidate as láthair of the 17 hopefuls looking to take the Galway West Dáil seat vacated by Catherine Connolly’s elevation to the Áras. He may have dodged a bullet.
Orla Nugent (Au ), Helen Ogbu (Lab ), Cillian Keane (FF ) and Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich (SD ) all stumbled on booby-trapped questions concerning their own parties’ manifestos, while Mark Lohan (SF ), Noel Thomas (II ), Niall Murphy (GP ), Denman Rooke (PBP ) and AJ Cahill (IPP ) had inconsistencies in theirs laid bare.
Nobody was exactly filleted by Morley, although he fairly skewered Sean Kyne (FG ) on his record in government, but no one – not even first timers, or independents without party support – was spared rapid-fire follow-ups from an MC constrained only by the fleeting seconds he could award each participant on a populous panel within a two-hour show.
Renaissance masterpiece?
The 16 Dáil hopefuls were seated along one side of a long, narrow table covered in a blue, cotton cloth in the windowless bowels of the hotel. Picture Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, except the stand-out, central figure of Jesus Christ himself was, instead, Mike Cubbard (Ind ), in a suit. He was actually a bit off centre, but he’s tall, and he’s the mayor, so we’ll claim artistic licence. Da Vinci did…
By his side, co-equal in true centre spot was Nugent, dressed in a pastel pink suit, and Keane, in crisp white, who had his head buried in notes for much of the debate. The young Fianna Fáiler described the gathering as “a rag tag group” which didn’t win him many friends.
Seating was apparently drawn by lot. Canadian born Sheila Garrity (Ind ) and Ogbu, from Nigeria, plainly drew short straws, as the two women were sandwiched between Cahill and Thomas – both men not exactly renowned for their welcome for foreigners.
US-born Rooke, with a South African-Irish-Indian background, got off lightly. He was seated next to Néill Bairéad (Ind ) who was perhaps the only candidate who scored a hit on militant Morley when he declared “somebody has to read these books” to the presenter’s criticism of his highfalutin language regarding “emancipation from neoliberalism”. Rooke’s desire for “decommodification” chimed in nicely.
Rooke sported a blue, Claddagh boatman’s skipper hat during the husting, but it was the black-capped John O’Leary (Ind ) who attracted most attention. He seemed immune to Morley’s questioning, and earned sniggers from the 60-strong audience when he revealed he had designed a one square metre – yes, 1sqm – house, to solve the housing crisis. At one stage, he pulled out a giant picture of a horse’s arse, but this reviewer is not intellectual enough to understand its situationist meaning if, indeed, it had any.
Mark Lohan deployed the cúpla focail admirably for a man under fire for his leader, Mary Lou McDonald’s, misplaced belief in his linguistic competency – a “miscommunication” apparently - while Cubbard has clearly been brushing up on the teanga, although he’s no way near Kyne’s competency. Nugent’s fluency retains a soft, Fermanagh twang, while Nic Fhionnlaoich’s native Conamara Theas canúint was rockpool clear.
Judge a man by his friends
Thomas Welby (Ind ) has topped the poll four times in Conamara North, and with 22 years on Galway county council, he proclaimed himself “the most experienced” candidate. He smiled, thinly, when Morley suggested that CV qualifies him to replace recently-resigned Michael Healy-Rae TD as a junior minister in the Department of Agriculture. Healy-Rae and Michael Lowry TD nominated Welby for the Seanad last year, and the arc of Welby’s expressive eyebrows suggested he did not enjoy the public reminder, explaining that he “must join a group” if elected, in order to ensure speaking rights in the Dáil.
Speaking of curious associations, Michael Ryan (Ind ) struggled to explain his explicit support for the family of serial schoolgate lurker Enoch Burke, while Rooke gave a Jesuitical answer to how he wanted the Green Party to replace Niall Murphy, yet could still support him in a vote left transfer pact.
Noel Thomas said he would renounce the so-called “IRB” – pseudo-sovereign-legalists who claim their own time zone 25 minutes slower than the one you are reading in now – and that he “never had anything to do with them” before confirming he did attend an Irish Republican Brotherhood meeting in Oughterard, but it was okay to, because it was about transforming a nursing home into an IPAS centre.
Housing
Garrity, a seasoned campaigner for Catherine Connolly, said she had met more three-generation households this election, than in 20 years canvassing, because of the housing emergency.
Lohan took the opportunity of a housing question to throw sharp digs at Independent Ireland for its vague policy on the urgent topic du jour. Kyne waffled through government talking points, while young Keane pinned all his hopes for delivering everything on Jack Chambers’ Critical Infrastructure bill.
Ogbu wants us to return to the 1940s, when public bodies built well-planned, large-scale suburban developments, such as Shantalla. Cahill, perhaps also with the 1940s in mind, wants to reduce the number of people living in Ireland rather than build homes, thereby solve the crisis by denuding population; how this final solution should be undertaken was not detailed, except “carve outs” from the European Convention on Human Rights will facilitate it.
Nic Fhionnlaoich wants Rent Pressure Zones confusingly replaced with Rent Reference Zones, while Thomas demanded planning permission for sites behind one-off rural homes – so-called “backland development”. Murphy said the saving of rural Ireland was housing in its villages and towns, but poor water infrastructure remains the main obstacle.
Get Galway going
The conversation on transport did not throw up anything particularly new – all candidates deplore congestion, and support improved infrastructure to varying degrees – although Bairéad’s “human monitored” traffic lights was novel. Nic Fhionnlaoich wants financial support to buy electric cars, while Thomas had a row with Morley on his party’s plan to widen roads.
Aontu’s transport policy is costed, but Nugent didn’t know its figures. Keane again claimed the Critical Infrastructure bill would sort everything. Cubbard supports active travel schemes, but deplores their designers’ messaging. Cahill admitted it was “a bit of a stretch” to blame immigrants for Galway’s travel chaos. He wants double yellow lines painted red, and schools to start earlier.
Time ran too short for more than two queries from the audience, and the uninvited Advertiser’s attempt to lob a hand grenade question into proceedings was [quite correctly – Ed.] rejected, with presumably extreme and gleeful prejudice by Galway Bay FM.
Vicious.
The debate can be listened to at www.galwaybayfm.ie/podcasts/galway-talks/ Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
