Search Results for 'Mike Cubbard'

WITH 10 days to polling day, Galway West has become something it has never been before - unpredictable. For years it returned two FF and one each for FG, Labour, and a PD/Independent. Even the electoral upheaval of 2011 almost bypassed the constituency, with FG the party to take two, as opposed to FF.

Could it be possible that after the General Election Galway city would have no political representation in the Dail? Yes, it is, and it would appear to Insider that three of the main political parties – Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, and Sinn Féin – intend it to be that way.

Catherine Connolly came agonisingly close to winning a seat in the 2011 General Election, but five years on, with Labour's decline and despite the rise of Sinn Féin, will 2016 finally be the year she makes it into Dáil Éireann?

By the beginning of February, the 2016 General Election will have more then likely been declared, and by the end of that month it will more than likely have been held and, 'bar the shouting', be completed across the State, except in Galway West, which will, as usual, drag on much longer than anywhere else.

It is fashionable to be Independent at the moment, but given the record of Independents nationally and locally, Insider is not exactly sure why. True, political parties are not that popular right now, and Independents do not have to carry that baggage, but what have they ever actually done? What is their purpose?

For the last 12 to 18 months, Labour Galway West TD Derek Nolan has been regarded by pundits and political anoraks as the constituency's 'dead man walking', not so much 'the lad most likely to...' but rather the 'absolute certainty' to lose his seat.

Mike Cubbard, the Independent city councillor has formally declared he will be running for Dáil Éireann in the Galway West constituency at next year's General Election.

If the Nobel Academy awarded an annual prize for generosity then the Irish people would surely have won it many times over. This thought came to mind as Insider perused the secluded Tara China site, with the historic Mervue House, standing on three acres of gated grounds, surrounded to the front by trees.

A number of city councillors have voiced their frustration about the lack of a direct bus service linking Knocknacarra and Westside with the industrial estates on the eastern side of the city such as Parkmore, Liosbaun, and Ballybane.