LUMPS of coal some councillors will be getting this Christmas for their bad behaviour over the last 12 months.
Listen, for the most part, Limerick’s 40 elected Council representatives are good boys and girls who do their best to keep out of trouble and not be rubbing anyone in City Hall, or the public at large, up the wrong way.
Of course, sometimes they just can’t help themselves, and, like moths to a flame, are often determined to put their foot in it and say the wrong thing.
If Santa could bring them some kind of magic potion to synchronise their mouths and brains, that really would be the best gift any of these fine folk could ask for. But then, of course, my job wouldn’t be half as entertaining and I’d have to find other ways to try and keep myself out of trouble.
Hard to believe it, I’m sure, but I, like our unruly councillors, am far from perfect and have a few delectable foibles of my own. I too am a sinner and there’s every possibility I too will get nothing but coal this Christmas.
But enough about me. Who is likely to end up on the naughty list this Christmas down in City Hall?
Well, a little birdy tells me that Fine Gael councillor Dan McSweeney is hovering around the top of the wayward boys inventory. He’ll be lucky if he gets soot after his recent outburst in County Hall. The poor cratur must be teething as he threw a right old wobbler with the generals from Active Travel not so long ago.
If the Santa’s elves saw him stomping out of the chamber like Kanye West trying to upstage Taylor Swift at the VMAs, he would be in right trouble. There would be no more swings for this boy in the playground at the People’s Park let me tell you – and boy does the boy love a swing.
And leave it alone to Cllr McSweeney’s party colleague Cllr Adam Teskey, who might wake up to an empty stocking on Christmas morning as well due to a similar flare-up at the annual budget meeting when he also took a fit of the Mariah Careys.
Sure, Cllr Teskey did apologise for his outburst at the last full local authority meeting, but it felt about as sincere as a statement from an Israeli state official.
I’d say the elves are keeping a very close eye on Cllr Teskey at present.
Speaking of the Israelis, Independent councillor Emmett O’Brien is surely spending Christmas with the Grinch after his heartless eruption in County Hall last month. Mrs Claus should be sent out to Pallaskenry to blacken his hoop after the way he spoke to Social Democrats councillor Elisa O’Donovan. Never mind coal, there won’t even be kindling for this bowsie.
Cllr O’Donovan proposed last month that the local authority endorse the Amnesty International report entitled ‘Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: A Cruel System of Domination and a Crime Against Humanity‘. She also called for support of the Palestinian BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement as a show of solidarity with Palestine.
However, Cllr O’Brien was far from impressed and deemed it a “shameful” motion to put before Limerick City and County Council.
“I don’t exactly break out in cold sweat every night about Israel and Palestine, and I certainly don’t care what’s happening in the Ukraine and Russia. Why do we have to concern ourselves so much in Ireland about it?” he shamefully inquired.
They are well able to pout and cry this lot, but they would want to watch out nonetheless, because you know who is coming – and I don’t mean Dr Pat Daly!
