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With the festive period now over, politicians have turned their thoughts to the year ahead and in one respect the mood across the parties is the same – we are now in an election year.

Galway West could elect its first Sinn Féin TD in almost a century come the 2016 General Election, but it could be new city councillor Máiréad Farrell instead of current party standard bearer Sen Trevor Ó Clochartaigh.

“The only valid poll is on election day!” is the guff politicians huff and bluster with when the latest round of opinion polls turn out badly for them. Yet fear not reader, Insider can assure you all politicians, regardless of what they say publicly, take opinion poll findings very seriously.

Protest works. This is the message of the last number of weeks. Although Insider is uncomfortable with some of the more intimidating displays seen recently, there is no denying that the scale of the anti-water charges protests, the palpable public anger, and the unprecedented display of hostility shown to both the Taoiseach and Tánaiste has chastened the Government.

Unless the Government starts offering more attractive incentives to small and medium-sized enterprises in Galway, and elsewhere throughout the State, such SMEs are at risk of leaving Ireland to set up in Britain.

James Charity, the Independent politician first elected to the Galway County Council at last May’s local elections, has declared he will stand for the Dáil at the 2016 General Election.

It was not the bank collapse of 2008, the implosion of the economy, the unforgivable bank guarantee, nor four years of harsh austerity measures which forced the Irish people on to the streets in protest.

A Galway senator has declared that a vote for Fine Gael candidate John McNulty in the Seanad elections “is a vote for cronyism”.

The “blatant exploitation” of Irish farmers by the meat industry is “unacceptable” and must be eradicated, so that farmers will be paid a fairer price for their beef.

Children are taking their lives in their hands when crossing the “dangerous” ‘Respond Road’ in Oranmore to attend the town’s various schools.