“UNEASY lies the head that wears the crown”. Ne’er truer words did the great bard ever speak.
In fact, I thought his lordship’s head was going to roll last Tuesday evening when the daggers were unsheathed in County Hall. After Mayor John Moran’s much-exaggerated folly on Live 95, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were gifted the opportunity to weave snares to trap him within their Dooradoyle dungeons.
These days the Council seems to prefer to hang out its dirty linen behind closed doors without the prying eyes of the press. So what was afforded last Tuesday evening was very much a public execution-style dressing down of our directly-elected Mayor that councillors lapped up with gusto.
Fine Gael councillor John Sheahan painted a vivid picture deeming the Council’s day-to-day operations at present as a real “sh*t show”.
How the local authority, Council executive, and councillors will move past this “clearing of the air” moment is anyone’s guess. Watching in the wings, it felt to me that their three-hour scorn-fest can only do more harm than good.
Councillors have made a bad habit at this point of throwing their toys out of the prams, and relishing the prospect of hamstringing their new Mayor at every opportunity, whatever the root cause.
Cllr Sheahan might feel the mischievous hacks in the media are being far too unkind, making a “mockery” even, of their goings-on, but by Jehovah they do make it easy.
On all sides now though, you do get the sense that there’s an element of skullduggery at play as proceedings have reached a point of no turning back from.
The adjourned mayoral fund meeting last week, which has been adjourned once more, was just another low point. Why councillors were allowed so much time to carry out their witch hunt is beyond me.
Independent councillor Ursula Gavan summed it up well, saying: “It is carnage here. We have two grown men up there and we have an executive as well with them. We have a Council here and we can’t work together. We need to cop on to ourselves and leave our egos at the door.”
Like mammy with the wooden spoon, Cllr Gavan was ready to send Mayor, Director General, and her fellow councillors to bed without supper.
“Every week there’s something. Everybody’s upset. But you know what, I don’t really care that everyone’s upset because we’re here to do a job. Limerick is the one suffering,” she scolded.
There was plenty of talk of banging heads together and acting like grown-ups, but little signs of it.
The top brass certainly came out fighting, and drew a line in the sand in case of any future skirmishes.
“The Council is not a perfect organisation, but by Jesus it’s a good one, and I won’t have anything said about it in public. I will defend it at every cross and turn,” director general Dr Pat Daly told councillors in the Dooradoyle war room.
Following a vote of confidence in Dr Daly and his staff, Mayor Moran was asked whether he had full confidence in the DG and rank and file. And while he got grief for working on his laptop and munching away on his lunch during the meeting, he wasn’t stuck for words when pushed for comment.
“I believe the staff of this organisation have done amazing work, just in case anyone wants to twist that, but I do not believe they are supported fully to do what they need to do. I have been elected to deliver a better Limerick. I have worked with Pat Daly and I will continue to work with Pat Daly,” Mayor Moran insisted.
Fine Gael councillor Adam Teskey had never seen the like of the carry on in his 10 years on the local authority. “Chaos”, he deemed it – while also taking the time to take umbrage at the Mayor’s reference to the last 18 months of the new Council “as being on a journey”.
“I believe this journey has led to a cul de sac,” the chaos-averse Teskey claimed.
The Adare Rathkeale man also took the view that Mayor Moran is in a unique position to “unify, electrify, and bring people together”.
“But instead of building bridges, you have created divisions. For God’s sake man, if you don’t take responsibility for what’s happening in this chamber today, you run the risk of destroying this local authority. Wake up!”
As the saying goes, “fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity”.
– Local Democracy Reporting Scheme