IT didn’t take long, and this was always my fear to begin with, but we have trouble in paradise already.
When it was grand parades and flinging darts into the river, they were all getting on just great in City Hall. But shur, it couldn’t last, especially when it came time to behave like grownups.
At least it lasted longer than our City of Culture fiasco before imploding.
All hasn’t come apart at the seams yet mind, but there was certainly worrying signs of mutinous intent out in County Hall last week when councillors and new mayor John Moran had to sit together and get down to real business.
Handbags were clearly set for dawn as the gloves came off for a good-old fashioned Mexican standoff between the head honcho and the 40 elected banditos on Limerick City and County Council.
As it turns out, there’s two kinds of people in this world, those with loaded guns and those who dig, as the man says.
And while the trigger-happy blue shirts over on the Fine Gael bench had their aim very much fixed on Mayor John Moran, he didn’t particularly feel like digging and stood his ground to their fiddling onslaught.
The good, the bad, and the ugly, as well as a few other disgruntled-looking desperados all took wild potshots at big gun Moran. Each and every shot made its own tune, but ultimately, the whining cackle blended into one big cacophonous whimper of sour grapes.
Fine Gael were not overly enamoured with the slick new hotshot’s way of doing business, and so attempted to cut him off at the pass to put a noose around his neck. As luck would have it, Moran has a golden-haired angel – the law – watching over him and these early skirmishes left him unscathed.
Fine Gael had to swallow their pride before riding off into the sunset to plan their next attack.
What was it that had them all riled up like 10 pounds of crazy in a five pound sack?
Well, Fine Gael’s John Sheahan had only nominated councillors Olivia O’Sullivan, Joe Leddin, and Fergus Kilcoyne to the board of Innovate Limerick at the July meeting of LCCC. Independent councillor Brigid Teefy had also proposed Cllr Maria Donoghue to the same committee.
But, the Mayor asked, what experience did these councillors have to sit on said board?
Well, butter me and call me a biscuit, if Moran didn’t just tell council members that he thinks the way board members are appointed is not necessarily consistent with the governance code for State agencies. He was playing by his own rules now and would be answering to neither man nor varmint.
“It is the prerogative of the shareholder to choose directors that can best serve that company. In order to do that, I think it is appropriate that we actually take into account the skills of the various people,” he said.
That was some straight-talking from the Mayor that made a whole lot of sense to me, but Fine Gael were like a hippie’s bedroom – highly incensed.
“I’m not happy with a ‘please sir, can I be on the board’ approach,” Cllr Sheahan shot back.
“We are the people that the people chose, like us or lump us.”
Cllr Daniel Butler, Moran’s opponent in the recent mayoral election, also had a bee in his bonnet.
“I don’t need to be lectured on what my responsibilities are. I have carried them out to a high standard over my career. I don’t need somebody coming in here lecturing me about how I should be doing my business,” he caterwauled.
One thing was clear from this meeting, there’s a new lawman in town, and he deals in lead, friend.
