Lie down with dogs and you’ll get up with fleas

Happier times: Declan McDonnell (right) passes on the Mayoral Chain of Office to Michael Crowe in 2010. Chances are they’d be more likely to strangle one another with the chain this time around, though they won’t get that chance after the mayoral pact between them broke down.

placeholder image — Happier times: Declan McDonnell (right) passes on the Mayoral Chain of Office to Michael Crowe in 2010. Chances are they’d be more likely to strangle one another with the chain this time around, though they won’t get that chance after the mayoral pact between them broke down.

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Rat-like cunning is said to be one of the main attributes for a successful career in journalism. The same could be true of politics.

There was rat-like cunning – and rats – in abundance during the negotiations over the city mayoral pact.

Fianna Fáil, the party that perfected the art of political shafting, was shafted in true Machiavellian style over negotiations for the five-year mayoral pact.

Some of the actions of the protagonists involved in the whole affair, and those involved ‘behind the scenes’ in the horse-trading, has ensured that their reputation for trustworthiness is now as low as crocodile piss.

Fianna Fáil thought it had reached a deal to renew the existing pact with Fine Gael and Independents, former Progressive Democrats, Declan McDonnell, Terry O’Flaherty and Donal Lyons.

Mike Crowe was doing the negotiating for FF; McDonnell was batting for the Independents; mayor Pádraig Conneely was negotiating for his FG colleagues (Frank Fahy, Pearce Flannery and John Walsh).

From a political point of view, would you trust any of them, let alone the three of them in the one smoky room, to thrash out a deal?

FF was to get two mayors, FG was to get two and Independents were to get one. In the previous pact, FF had just one and Independents and FG two each.

FF says a deal was done: All that was needed was to shake on spit-filled hands. But the Independents, apparently, weren’t happy with just the one chain, and so went looking elsewhere, unbeknownst to FF.

The other crowd claims FF was fluttering its eyelashes elsewhere, and about to oust FG from the pact – a charge denied by FF. FG says FF are hypocrites.

Between the jigs and the reels and the lust for an extra chain and a few extra committees, FG and Independents decided to ditch FF, and court Labour, who, with such a weak bargaining position – with just two councillors – were more than happy to have the Crowe’s sloppy seconds.

The only ones coming out of this debacle with reputations intact is the three Shinners – Maireád Farrell, Cathal Ó Conchúir and Anna Marley – and Independent City Councillor Catherine Connolly, all of whom wouldn’t lower themselves to bartering over the trappings of power.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.