Mayor’s election-free Easter punt pays off
Bradley Bytes – A Sort of Political Column with Dara Bradley
Political pundits have been boring us for two years, at least, about when the next General Election will be held.
For ‘experts’, they have been remarkably inaccurate about the timing of the election.
An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, whose prerogative it was to ‘go to the Áras’ and call an election, kept everyone guessing.
And of course, so too did the opposition, and Fine Gael’s ‘Confidence and Supply’ partners who were propping up the Government, Fianna Fáil.
It made planning an election campaign for the first half of this year difficult for sitting TDs and would-be TDs, although in reality they’ve all been on election footing for many months.
We now know the election will be held on Saturday, February 8.
Spare a thought for Mayor Mike Cubbard, who had the unenviable task of having to organise a mayoral ball before the end of May, hoping that it wouldn’t coincide with polling day, and the count.
In the end, Mayor Mike chose Easter Saturday, April 11, for the charity ball, which will raise funding for ACT for Meningitis, Galway Autism Partnership, Galway Rape Crisis Centre and Rosabel’s Rooms.
His reasoning? “I figured it was the only weekend we were guaranteed there’d be no General Election. It’s hard to see Fine Gael go to the polls Good Friday,” he said.
Galway 2020 just can’t buy a break!
News of a General Election being held on Saturday, February 8, will come as a disappointment to Galway 2020, European Capital of Culture . . .
*For more Bradley Bytes see this week’s Galway City Tribune