NAAS, 18 September 2002: You really had to feel for Declan Kirrane.
“We have the power!” Slap! “We passed a resolution, so it is this council’s policy!” Slap! “We’ll not have any pussyfooting!” Slap! “We’ll put down double yellow lines!” Slap! “What we decided will be implemented, and that’s all there is to it!” Slap!
It was a virtuoso performance last night from Naas mayor Timmy Conway, who had a clear view of the public gallery and its cohort of Lakelands residents, all voters in 20 months’ time.
It was bad enough that Mayor Tim was effectively telling his town clerk, and his town engineer, where to get off. But punctuating each sentence with a slap on the council table - Declan Kirrane’s pride and joy because he originally found it and bought it for what was then Naas UDC - must have been really hard to take.
It could have been worse. Mayor Tim could have done a Nikita Kruschev and used his shoe to mark his points, as the then Russian leader once famously did at the UN.
That then was to get attention. The slaps on the polished table at the first autumn meeting of Naas Town Council might have had the same intention, because Mayor Tim was watching the back of the hall with a half-smile as he did his strong public representative bit.
The Lakelands people understood the mayor’s performance perfectly. Though they actually weren’t very impressed with the whole deal. The one they weren’t getting for most of the discussion.
And they’ll believe the mayor’s power when they actually get resident-only parking throughout their estate. Truth to tell though, they’re not holding their collective breaths. Passing a motion at Naas Town Council and getting it implemented don’t always follow each other. And none of them plan on lying around blue-faced waiting on the double yellow lines and their residents' tickets.
The hot chestnut had come up a couple of times during the meeting. First during a back-slapping review of the progress of the pay-parking system. A deserved success without doubt, but it does get a bit hard to take a table-round of councillors’ congratulations on a simple case of a job done properly. Most of which is, by intent, self-congratulation.
At that point, though, there was a hint from both the town engineer and town clerk that they’d be doing something for the suffering of Lakelands later in the evening.
That ‘later’ came with Cllr Mary Glennon’s motion asking that resident-only parking be implemented in a number of estates which were being clogged by insensitive motorists not wanting to pay for their parking in the town centre. Lakelands included.
Declan Kirrane gave his report, and said that the council was considering providing resident-only parking ‘in the cul de sacs’ of the estate. He was backed up by town engineer John McGowan who said the council ‘had to be practical’ in whatever they did, and then amplified that to mean what the council ‘could police’. An echo of what has several times in the last year or so been the ‘hands in the air’ view of the town clerk on the parking problem in Lakelands.
Then - and it was almost lost in the dubious acoustics of the council chamber - the town clerk expanded on his own earlier thought, or contracted it perhaps, saying that he meant ‘the cul de sac in front of the hospital’.
One, not all, now. And say I’m being picky, but that bit actually isn’t a cul de sac anyway.
Declan Kirrane then voiced his other thought that ‘it was OK for people to park on the main road’ of the estate, where there wasn’t a problem as far as he was concerned. Whoops! Has he heard those who live there?
Still, now the Lakelands ‘problem’ was reduced to a frontage of just one line of homes on one of the shortest roads in the estate. Now THERE’S town council efficiency. See, public discussion DOES clear the air and reduce difficulties!
In fact, there was quite a bit of that discussion subsequently. The town clerk got some support from Cllrs Pat O’Reilly and Seamie Moore to allow parking on what became known as the ‘spinal road’. Cllrs Glennon and Charlie Byrne were solidly on the residents’ side. Cllr Anthony Egan suggested that ‘both sides needed to be accomodated’. Cllr Pat McCarthy, straightforward man that he is, said that implementation of a motion on the same matter which had been already passed in the summer was all that was needed.
Of course, the residents at the back weren’t allowed to have a say at all, given the protocol around such ‘public’ meetings of a town council. But then, they’re only the victims. Anyway, the town officials have made it clear, at that meeting and earlier ones, that they don’t want to have to send their community wardens out into the sticks to ticket insensitive motorists.
There’s one good thing about being mayor, and therefore chairman of the meeting. You get to have the last speak. And Cllr McCarthy had unwittingly given Mayor Tim his opening to perform a class act in how to show public officials who's boss. Publicly. Which is where we came in.
But all’s fair in politics. Besides, there were only three officials at the table. And at least one of them probably won't even have a vote in the next town council elections.
