Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley
Brendan McGrath, the City Council chief executive, is politically aware and savvy enough to recognise that centimetres separate a pat on the back from a kick up the arse.
It was still understandable, though, that he blushed at a recent Council meeting. Oh boy did Brendan blush. He was scarlet; completely morto that the usually sceptical, blood-thirsty city councillors were eulogising his greatness.
Had Brendan doubled councillors’ travel expenses with the stroke of a pen, they wouldn’t have commended him so highly.
Most people have to die before they get the credit they deserve. But the bould Brendan was very much alive and kicking . . . and in the room to hear the plaudits.
At first he probably thought it was a trap. After all, the elected members at City Hall aren’t renowned for lauding the Executive.
Historically there has been a particularly tetchy relationship between the unelected management executive of the top table, and those elected by the people.
So his caution was advisable. But then even management’s most vocal critic, Pádraig Conneely (FG) started showering praise on him and, well, Brendan started to believe it.
Even though he didn’t say it outright, implicit in Pádraig’s praise of Brendan’s “vision” was the relative newbie’s predecessors’ lack of it (one of whom was sitting right next to him, Joe O’Neill, the former acting City Manager). But that’s an aside; he was quite fulsome in his praise of Brendan. So too were others.
Speaker after speaker mentioned his “vision” and referred to him as a “visionary”. Labour’s Billy Cameron would have given him a hug, if a couple of desks and several metres hadn’t separated them.
Independent Declan McDonnell was closer, and there were genuine fears he’d have to be dragged away from licking Brendan’s boots.
The reason? He had just unveiled plans to build a cultural centre and new library at the Council’s car park on Dyke Road. Councillors could hardly contain themselves.
Brendan is too clever to take all the credit, though. As he was being showered with roses, he recognised now was the perfect opportunity to swell councillors’ heads.
He said it was not he but the councillors who had the vision to put a cultural centre in the City Development and other plans. ‘I’m just implementing your vision’, he said. Oh the modesty!
But like a boomerang, the praise just kept coming back. The love-in was real. Or unreal, more like. Now everyone’s ego was massaged.
During the back-slapping, not one of the dewy-eyed, elected members raised the spectre of privatisation with the bould Brendan, who more than once in his presentation mentioned that the new ‘cultural centre’ might be privatised. The Council would build it, with public money. The private sector could run it, to make money.
Visionary, indeed.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
