Bradley Bytes: Crash course in the crowning of Cubbard

It was the Friday after May 24 polling day in the local elections, at 6.30pm in the Maldron Hotel on Sandy Road, where eight city councillors gathered. Five from Fianna Fáil (Mike Crowe, Ollie Crowe, Peter Keane, John Connolly and Alan Cheevers) and three from Fine Gael (Eddie Hoare, Clodagh Higgins and Frank Fahy) sat patiently waiting for two more councillors to arrive. And they sat, and they waited, and they waited. Labour’s Niall McNelis, the then city mayor, and Independent Noel Larkin, a former mayor, never showed up, however. If nothing else, it was bad manners. Though 48-hours previous, the pair had signed a mayoral pact with the two Civil War parties which tied them into a five-year deal, Larkin and McNelis subsequently, and separately, had a change of heart. Larkin had met Mike Crowe and Hoare in the same hotel earlier on Friday to seek assurances that the deal signed on Wednesday was still being honoured. Larkin requested that meeting; having not heard from them since the deal was signed, he feared FF/FG might side-line him. Larkin couldn’t make the 6.30pm meeting – he was at a funeral. And, anyway, he was livid with the eight for not keeping him in the loop, and for allegedly offering extra ‘goodies’ to McNelis and Mike Cubbard, and for eyeing up other potential suitors, including Owen Hanley of the Soc Dems. FF/FG deny that was the case. On Saturday, he went golfing to cool down and clear his head. Mike Crowe, FF’s negotiator, and rookie Eddie Hoare, FG’s negotiator, who had been elected for the first time a few days previous, aren’t stupid. So, when Larkin and McNelis failed to show, they smelled a rat. But because both men had agreed a deal – initialled it, signed it and shook on it – Crowe and Hoare weren’t too perturbed and expected that everything would eventually be sealed and delivered. It wasn’t. Crowe left McNelis a voicemail on Saturday, which was not responded to. By then, the Labour Party councillor was talking with players in an alternative Rainbow pact. On Sunday, Larkin texted the FF/FG alliance that he was ‘disengaging’ from the pact. He said the deal he had signed had been renegotiated without him being told. He was treated “condescendingly” and had received a “threatening text” about the document’s legally binding credentials. Hoare asked him to reconsider. Crowe rang and said his decision was impacting on people’s lives. Larkin wasn’t for turning. McNelis didn’t turn either. He’d signed up to a deal Wednesday, went home, changed his mind, came back, looked for something else, which FF/FG acceded to, but he still wasn’t happy. Ultimately, he went with the Rainbow having consulted with senior counsel and deciding that the deal he signed wasn’t “legally or morally binding – this is politics”. Mike Cubbard, who was named in the deal – the 11th of 11 councillors party to the pact – didn’t sign it. And not only did he show backbone by holding steady and telling FF/FG he wasn’t signing a deal unless he was mayor, the Polltopper had the last laugh, too, as it was Mike who was ultimately crowned First Citizen last Friday.

Politics the loser Niall McNelis was within his rights not to chair the Annual General Meeting of Galway City Council last Friday. Legally, that is. Senior counsel probably told him . . . For more Bradley Bytes, see this week's Galway City Tribune