Whoops! Excuse me! It's getting a little crowded among the FF camp

If you got the impression that things are getting a little crowded in Galway City among the Fianna Fáil pairing of Minister Eamon Ó Cuív TD and Frank Fahey TD – then you might be right. For in the past few weeks they seem to have spent some time stepping on each other’s toes.

The first one to have to say ‘excuse me’ was Fahey when he ‘jumped the gun’ on those announcements on money for schools. There were five of them in all included in the package announced by Fahey – and he had to make his excuses when it transpired that he announced on a Friday on Galway Bay fm a package that was not due for publication until the following Monday. Oops!

There is a time-honoured tradition in politics in Galway of ‘get the good news out as soon as you can, because if you don’t, then someone else will beat you to the punch’. But the word in Fianna Fáil circles is that one of the schools in particular – the proceeding to construction stage of work on Scoil Sailearna, in Indreabhan – annoyed the Ó Cuív followers especially.

That’s because they regard Inverin as very much in the Ó Cuív territory in Connemara, plus the fact that Ó Cuív had been closely involved in representations regarding Sailearna.

Though both Fahey and Ó Cuív get a sizeable vote in Galway City, up to now the unspoken understanding, at least among their respective camp followers, appears to have been that Ó Cuív is ‘King of Connemara’ and Frankeen is ‘the man’ in Galway City.

Of course, neither Ó Cuív nor Fahey would concede any such arrangement. However, if Fahey’s followers might have regarded their man as very much to ‘top man’ in the city (but don’t tell that to the many followers of city FF Councillor Michael Crowe!), then they will not have been best pleased at Ó Cuív nipping in at the weekend to make a statement on the importance of the Galway Outer Bypass, which is an issue Deputy Fahey has made ‘his own’ for some time.

Indeed, Fahey carried out an extensive opinion poll on the Bypass quite some time ago; as Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, he has made the issue a priority; and he has repeatedly pointed out that the lack of the Galway Outer By-Pass means thousands of cars unnecessarily coming into Galway City each day, and being a major contributory cause to huge traffic jams at peak times.

As the Minister in the constituency, however, Eamon Ó Cuív gets precedence for many of the major occasions in the city . . . and such an event occurred last week when Ó Cuív was guest of honour at the Galway Chamber of Commerce Spring Reception, which is, basically, the launch of the Chamber’s new year, and is an occasion on which a figure like Ó Cuív would be expected to do an extensive review of the happenings and events to come. He did just that.

Ó Cuív has recently been very publicly associated – especially in the city – with the winning of €4 million in funding from Tourism Minister Martin Cullen TD to back up Galway’s bid to once again host the Volvo Round the World Race in 2011-2012.

A feather in his cap . . . though at that Chamber function Ó Cuív described it in a low-key way as “working with his Cabinet colleague Minister Martin Cullen and ‘Let’s Do It Global’ in arranging government support for Galway’s bid for the next Volvo Ocean Race.”

For more, read page 12 of this week's Connacht Tribune.