The three ugly sisters

The Italians have an old political saying which sez roughly ‘ if you’re not at the table your probably on the menu’. That this pearl of wisdom is not lost on our friends in the west was brought home to us in no uncertain terms by the Irish media over the last few days. The fact of an Irish government without as much as one minister from the west has the natives in a political spin. It goes without saying that there is no minister from the south east either but as ever that produces no reaction. For the reality is that over the last forty years the west has been way over – represented in terms of feet under the cabinet table and the consequent flow of goodies to their constituencies. For example two of the biggest organs of state the departments of education and social welfare are centered on the west and northwest and in very mediocre sized towns at that. The welfare budget is almost €20billion per annum and to administer it costs €1bn. This is a nice little cash injection from the taxpayer to a small town. Similarly the picturesque town of Letterkenny in Donegal would be nobody’s idea of a surging metropolis but the taxpayer is also quids in there by way of the education dept. As for Galway well where would you start? Hospitals,university ,institutes of learning and countless govt quangos. Arts music and film festivals a bender and each one subsidised to hilt from the taxpayer. Writing in a national newspaper a few years back a local correspondent said there wasn’t enough days in the calendar to cope with the various festivals. In the shootout for which Irish urbania would  vie for European capital of culture a few years ago the three ugly sisters of Waterford Kilkenny and Wexford made a joint bid but Galway on its own beat them out the gate. The last i heard they can’t spend all the money because of the covid. When the pope came back in 79 naturally he had to say mass in Galway and when jack kennedy came in 63 he also got to see the sun go down in Galway bay. I could go on in this vein ad Infinitum but I’m sure you get the jist. The larger question for the denizens of the south east of course is why we don’t look for our fair share. The answer surely lies in the quality of political representative we elect. The vast majority are simply not ‘ministerial material’ and are obviously and easily outmanoeuvred by their counterparts. Compliant and weak local media outlets must also share blame. Silly squabbling  between counties Over local issues hasn’t helped either. I remember back in the eighties when Ireland was on its knees the western catholic bishops got together and went to Brussels to make an economic case for the region. One of them even picked up a shovel over in Knock and when asked by a perplexed reporter what he was at, he replied,’ I’m building an airport’. And he was. So hats off to our western friends for their fighting spirit and to their vociferous political representatives. We in the south east could certainly use some of their stardust.