Smiles through gritted teeth!

As each day goes by I look more & more like Shrek!

I was fortunate to attend last week’s Council meeting to elect the new Metropolitan Mayor, or Metro Mayor as it has now been shortened to, of Waterford City.

As a side note I still read, via the interweb and social media, that there is continued confusion as to why we have two Mayors.

Yes, we have one “Senior” Mayor for the City and Council, who oversees the full plenary Council meetings of 32 Councillors and we have a Metropolitan Mayor of Waterford City, who oversees the Council’s Metropolitan District meetings of 18 Councillors. In addition there are the Comeragh District, 6 Councillors, and Dungarvan/Lismore District, 8 Councillors, neither of which has a Mayor, but they each have a Chairperson. In the future they may well wish to elect their own Mayors, in which case we could end up with four – confused, you may well be!

Anyway back to last week.

At a packed City Council Chambers, on the first floor of the Council buildings on The Mall, we awaited the election, nominations and voting on what turned out to be a two horse race, between Councillor John Hearne (SF) and Councillor L. Cha O’Neill (Ind). You can pre-judge how the voting will go just by looking around the Chamber and counting the number of supporters each candidate has in the public gallery. There were substantially more John Hearne supporters than Cha O’Neill so there would be no surprises on the night.

The order of Mayoral Office candidates was agreed at the very first amalgamated Council meeting, some two years ago, under a system called The D'Hondt Method. This proportionately allocates seats, or in this case positions, based on voting averages. Take into account the supplementary agreements made between the various pact groupings and you could have literally put your house on John Hearne getting the gig.

As is the process with elections, the two candidates still had to be nominated and seconded by fellow Councillors. The Chair also asked for any additional candidates to come forward – but alas none would be selected to add spice, to what would be a tame meeting. It was during this process that we heard the Proposers talk about their candidate and we listened to all manner of contributions that each contender had made to the Council and their Community.

A packed Press Centre!

There was even a suggestion that due to the high number of votes received by Councillor Hearne, at the last elections, he should have been a shoe in for Mayor and even Plenary Mayor. But the fact is at the last Local Council elections we were not voting for a Mayor, we were electing Councillors!

Maybe we do need to have elected Mayors and this would add a whole new dynamic to our local politics. We might even get a Boris!!!!!

Votes cast, there was no surprise that Councillor John Hearne was duly elected by a massive landslide majority of support.

For me the most interesting part of the meeting was after the votes were cast when Councillor after Councillor quite clearly spoke through gritted teeth about how they would support this historic new SF Mayor for Waterford City (Metro Mayor).

Clearly they were playing to the galleries of press in attendance, as I have seen no evidence over the last two years of certain Councillors supporting the opposition! In fact I would go further and say that deep down, many didn’t wish for a SF Mayor, but due to the pact and The D'Hondt Method they had little choice.

So, going forward will we see the Entente Cordiale continue throughout 2016 and into 2017?

David v a Goliath

I would hazard a guess that we will be back to normal at the next Council meeting, where swords will be drawn and normal hostilities will resume. Politics will never change!

As we are still at the bottom of the economic league table, I do wonder if a SF and FF Mayoral combination can be our Wales/Iceland to get us competing with the big boys? I wouldn’t put my house on it!

A Political Disaster-Class!

Is it just me or is anyone else shocked, annoyed, p@#$*d off and distinctly uncomfortable with the delay in forming a new Government? Was the election not seven weeks ago and yet we are still waiting to hear and read about the make-up of the next Dáil?

We all know that the wheels of Government tend to turn very, very slowly, but they appear not to be moving at all on the important issue of actually governing this country. It just goes to prove that the Humphreys of this world, which so famously amused us during the early eighties in the UK sitcom “Yes Minister”, are the people actually running this country.

Despite no Government, at the time of writing this article, this country continues to run and function efficiently enough. We have not yet turned into a lawless anarchistic state with angry hordes taking to the streets to demonise our political class thus begging the question just what have our newly elected representatives been doing for the last seven weeks?

Have we the tax payer just been subsidising one big Dublin shindig?

Is this not a clear case of demonstrating just how unproductive the political system is in Ireland? Were we to benchmark the productivity over the last seven weeks I am quite sure that the outcomes would not make good reading. Businesses and employees are constantly being told to be more productive, be more streamlined and yet the very people championing this mantra are themselves not practising what they preach. Never have I witnessed such ineptitude and incompetence.

Does it really take seven weeks to get round a table, bash a few heads together, forget historic playground jibes and “barter a better deal for the people for Ireland?”

Of course it should not.

The people, on 26^th February, gave a mandate for a new type of political representation and yet those elected seem to have forgotten this and now seem to be once again ploughing their own furrow for the betterment of who? There was just one chance to sweep the political map clean and start afresh? But we are back once again to sweeping the same dirt round and round the room.

Being openly pro all things Waterford, these delays are not doing our City, County and the greater South East any good what so ever. The longer the negotiations, (or should that read child’s play?), go on, the more and more we lose focus, on the very issues that need to be fixed to get us back to some sort of viable economic stability.

Wander around our City on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and even a Thursday and you will see very few people out spending money in our retail heart. We are still in that third tier of Ireland’s economic recovery and our disposable income is one of the lowest in the country. This elephant in our room will not go away and longer the procrastinations and childish bickering that goes on in Dublin the more our economic issues will fade as a distant election manifesto memory.

So who should we blame for the delay in getting on with governing? Well, I would blame ALL politicians for not sorting this mess out. People need to swallow their pride and find a solution that suits the county and not a solution that suits the politicians.

 

I wonder if we paid our politicians based on results, actions, productivity and delivery would we be in a different place? I do not know of any business or organisation for that matter, that would pay staff for what has in actuality been seven weeks of inactivity and downtime!

Finally, I must say that our TD’s are all looking extremely smart, save one or two exceptions, with new suits, perfect hair, and new gunas, on that satellite channel Oireachtas TV. Clearly, they have been spending their time wisely, seeking the advice of Gok Wan.

Though some have evidently engaged Trinny and Susannah for styling tips!

Time to get Political!

Democratic Party poster used in the 1960 US election!

There has been a flurry of political activity over the last week with two general election launches here in Waterford; David Cullinane’s Sinn Féin election campaign launch took place in the Granville Hotel, in Waterford City, and Mary Butler’s Fianna Fáil campaign launch took place in Micilins, in Kilrossanty. Incidentally, a place I have only discovered recently whilst cycling around our wonderful county on my Penny-farthing.

It was interesting to note the difference between these two launches, with one clearly City centric focused and the other County focused. I would have thought that the clever and most appropriate option would of course be to combine both a City and County launch thus getting a broad acceptance that you are going to “win” a seat in the next Government for the WHOLE of Waterford’s population and not just one geographical area.

Both launches rolled out a current political heavyweight and Mary Lou clearly got her and Cullinane’s PR bandwagon off to a flying start with her dulcet tones gracing the airwaves of WLR FM on Friday morning, and Billy giving her both barrels on the Proportional Electoral system and just where were Cullinane’s transfer votes going to come from. It will be interesting to see if Cullinane can in fact generate a decent number of transfers and I would envisage that his seat will be decided on just how he engages with the electorate outside of that SF comfort blanket.

Don't lean too far!

The two contrasting launches were also covered across the plethora of social media we are now bombarded with on our phones, PC’s, laptops and tablets. The Granville Hotel appeared to be hopping and there was much activity from the strategically placed press corps, seated just behind the top table for this launch, and in Kilrossanty it appeared to be a much more “sober” affair with less hooting and hollering from those in attendance and more of a gathering of friends than a media scrum.

In addition, there has been much sharing of betting odds across social media and according to the most recent odds supplied from the likes of Paddy Power Deasy, Halligan, Coffey and Cullinane are pretty much the favourites to be returned in the next election to represent our Waterford constituency.

Of course, betting odds in an election are very fickle and difficult to forecast and we only have to remind ourselves of the UK elections last May. Nobody predicted the outcome and even the final “live exit poll” on the BBC was poo-pooed by Paddy Ashdown, who stated live on air that he would eat his hat if the exit poll results were correct. Well, Paddy ended up eating not just his hat but his whole wardrobe, shoes and all.

It will certainly be an interesting few weeks ahead and all our local newspapers will begin to allocate more and more ink to the General Election of 2016. We are beginning to read election focused headlines as we all start to get excited by all the thoughts of reading about the latest political manoeuvrings and the potential of political skulduggery.

“A vote for Paudie Coffey” was declared one of our local columns. “Getting ready for election” was another editorial headline.

Will you vote to keep the Status Quo?

As we gear ourselves up to start thinking about the next election rest assured that if you wish to change the political map or keep the status quo than we must engage our existing politicians and we must interrogate our aspiring politicians.

The odds are extremely close and yet nobody really knows how we will vote until we have a ballot paper and a pencil on our hand and we are in the confines of the polling station.

However you decide to vote and everyone should vote, do a wee bit of homework and prepare for the next election. The last outcome you want to see is that of your preferred candidate missing election to the next Government by one vote – a vote that you failed to deliver by not understanding the candidates and the voting system in place.