ANY zookeeper will tell you that a gorilla does not flinch from a banana thrown at it by a monkey.
But when the gorilla is constantly surrounded by tiresome chimps, snarling and hissing at it, never mind the rotten fruit, it must get very tiresome very quickly. Of course, when you have had 15 months of Limerick’s political apes swinging their arms at you, I know I’d be glad of a break every now and again.
After five and a half hours of last week’s marathon full meeting of Limerick City and County Council, I had a good cry while considering my life choices. It’s a jungle out there in County Hall.
Councillors are constantly the proverbial monkey on Mayor John Moran’s back, so you couldn’t blame him for buggering off and leaving them all behind for New York. But word travels fast in the jungle.
News of Moran’s departure spread like wildfire, and councillors were screeching from the trees on his return.
Never mind the fact that the Mayor and Council executive only visited The Big Apple to give the hard sell on the Treaty City with a new-look Invest in Limerick promotional video at a high-profile launch event.
Marking a major milestone in international investment strategy, the New York shindig, hosted by Moran, in collaboration with the Irish Centre and attended by business leaders, diaspora investors, and public officials, showcased Limerick’s dynamic economic offering, its ‘Atlantic edge’ and ‘European embrace’. But were councillors happy about it?
“We’re told here that it’s a kind of three-legged stool we operate with the Mayor’s office, the officials’ office, and the councillors. That’s why it is a bit bockety around here,” Fianna Fáil councillor Kieran O’Hanlon chattered from the jungle floor.
Do we want our directly-elected Mayor out in the world doing his utmost to big up Limerick and drum up further investment for our future or what’s going on? I thought the City North representative was going to climb into his little rocket ship and take off for the stratosphere, he was that worked up.
“The Council has always been represented at events of this nature and I do think that it is quite important that we’re not allowing a precedent to be set where two of the three legs go off and promote Limerick while this Council is left out,” he said, practically beating his chest.
Mayor Moran is a man of many talents, but I certainly didn’t expect animal wrangling to be one of them, and it didn’t take him long to quell the savage beast in Cllr O’Hanlon.
“The Mayor gets invited to a lot of things all the time, and as an executive head of the organisation, it is the case that members of the executive travel all the time to do business, all over, both Ireland and the world, and don’t necessarily always travel with councillors,” he responded.
Taking up where O’Hanlon left off, Cllr John Sheehan (FG), hit back saying: “It’s a political executive function you have now and that’s the bit we’re missing in the whole thing here. Prior to the directly-elected Mayor, a chief executive wouldn’t dream of going on foreign travel without some member of the Council with him to represent the members and the chamber.”
“If this isn’t sorted out guys, we’re going to have this at every meeting for the next four years. Get this sorted out!”
There you have it – just cause you got the monkey off your back, doesn’t mean the circus has left town.
– Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
