Galway City Council Local Elections 2024

Unrealistic

We're going to need this thread sooner or later, so I guess there's no harm starting it now, to avoid de-railing the Getting Around Galway thread any further.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121130943/#Comment_121130943

@?Cee?view basic cop on and arithmetic will get you to the same conclusion. Galway Cyclists are a tiny minority and even then a subset of the 2% tiny minority support that the Greens enjoy. The same cycling “campaigners” debate each other ad nauseum online across all social media platforms. If anyone disagrees with them, they all pile on together against any one who dares contradict them. Witness the diatribe against Cllr. Keane quoted above from X. As one local editor of a Galway paper says, you get less of a reaction from the Taliban when you cross them!

The Green situation in Galway is compounded with O’Reilys vocal opposition to the Ring Road - that won’t be forgotten - and her latest spectacular own goal with her speech in the Seanad on restricting free speech is another nail in the coffin for her political outing.

• Basic cop on and arithmetic should tell you that the Green party support may be 2% nationally but it is highly concentrated in specific constituencies. Galway City West happens to be one of those constituencies, hence Pauline O'Reilly's 16% of the first preference vote last time around.
• Basic cop on and arithmetic should also tell you that local factors are far more important than national party preference in Council elections, hence independent candidates topping the polls in all three city wards last time around.
• Interesting that you view Galway cyclists as a tiny minority who are a subset of Green voters and don't even seem to consider that there can be a portion of the electorate who are not Green voters but who still place importance on provision for walking and cycling. Indeed I personally know an active Fianna Fail cumann member who will give out about Eamon Ryan to anyone who will listen for not doing enough to facilitate walking and cycling. Someone like that might not be willing to vote Green in a General Election, because they might not want to see their core policies implemented at a national level, but they can still view a local election as a safe forum to scratch a particular local itch about walking/cycling provision or similar.
• O'Reilly has taken a stand on the Ring Road but I think the population is a lot less united in support for the Ring Road than you seem to think it is. I wasn't impressed with her and her party's support for the Hate Speech Bill, but I don't know that very many people will be thinking about that when they are deciding whether to vote for Niall Murphy or Martina O'Connor next June.
• That's an interesting take on Peter Keane's statement. For those who don't know, Peter Keane argued and voted against safety improvements at Nile Lodge on the basis that it would slow down traffic, even though the Council engineers presented data to show that any reduced throughput would be negligible. He then went on to make two statements that were pure gaslighting. First, that he was promoting active travel by voting for a proposal to proceed with the scheme only if the main safety improvements have been removed, when it is universally understood the real impact of the vote is to likely torpedo the scheme completely. Then, in a city where 20% of households don't have access to a car at all, and many more people don't have access to a car even if someone else in the their household does, he decides to describe travelling by foot or bike as a luxury, and state that he was aiming to achieve 'balance' by killing safety measures to possibly save a few seconds on car journeys. Coincidentally, that junction lies on the direct route between Keane's place of work and and his home. Google maps says that the journey between the two locations is a 7 minute drive, 8 minute cycle, or 23 minute walk. I don't know which method of transport Keane uses and I'm sure it had no bearing on the position he took.

I don't know about you, but I think that kind of duplicitous black is white bullsh!t is going to be at least as polarising as what you're accusing O'Reilly of, if not more so.

Gremlinertia

Mod note: This is certainly not the way to start a thread about the topic. Closed - Grem