Political 'young guns' may have to bide their time in ambitions to be the Mayor

Well, we are about a week from the installation of a new Mayor of Galway City – and it seems that two of the ambitious ‘young guns’ of Galway politics may have to wait a little longer for a term in the office that could significantly improve their eventual hopes of getting Dáil seats.

I refer, of course, to Fianna Fáil’s Councillor Peter Keane, and Fine Gael’s Councillor Hildegarde Naughton – both of whom won seats in the Local Elections for the first time in 2009, and both of whom would dearly like a term as ‘First Citizen’ as a possible booster to a stint in Leinster House.

The Mayoralty is being divided up between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents (former PDs) in a power-sharing agreement which is unique to Galway City. The Independents are to get two terms of the Mayoralty; Fine Gael get two terms, and Fianna Fáil get one term, during the life of the City Council from 2009 to 2014.

The agreement shut out Labour from the Mayoralty during the life of the present City Council – the deal keeping out the single biggest party in the City Council (Labour with five seats out of 15), and FG keeping their Labour possible partners in any new Government with Eamon Gilmore as Tánaiste, out of power in Galway as they ‘play footsie’ with FF.

In the city, Naughton and Keane are among the ‘new generation’ of politicians . . . Naughton with more than 1,000 first preferences in her first outing in the Local Elections for Fine Gael, while Keane was one of the rare winners for Fianna Fáil in the 2009 Local Elections.

Keane utterly bucked the 2009 electoral disaster FF were suffering, by taking a seat in the Galway City West ward, his 870 first preferences helping him to clinch a seat in an area where Fianna Fáil did not even have a seat going into the Locals.

Naughton was the surprise packet of the FG Local Elections effort in the same ward, as a complete newcomer to politics, the young teacher unseated long-serving FG councillor, John Mulholland, in an electoral ‘turn-up for the books’ that is still talked about in city politics.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.