Council Affairs: The more absurd the better

SHUR, look, it was only a matter of time before the Ryder Cup started getting flack from councillors in a desperate act of headline-grabbing subterfuge.

If they think they can get column inches out of an absurd yarn, it’s case of, the more absurd, the better. They can always deny they ever said it anyway, which is one of their favourite stratagems.

At this month’s Adare-Rathkeale area meeting, Limerick Council’s answer to Bubba Watson, Cllr Adam Teskey, took a wild banana slice of a shot at the 2027 Ryder Cup . The Fine Gael sandbagger must have been up all night concocting this insane in the divot digging membrane sized tee party.

Teskey, I imagine, plays his golf like he plays his politics – always standing too close to the ball after he’s hit it. He had a similar moment in the council chamber last week when he teed off with a tale so outlandish that it would have been best saved for the nineteenth hole.

“Maybe it’s just me, but I think this Ryder Cup is turning into absolute chaos,” he told council management.

I tell you what, he came out swinging, and was taking the local authority, caddies, Limerick Twenty Thirty, greenkeepers, and even fellow councillors, kicking and screaming into a watery grave with him. Poor auld, Discover Limerick, however, didn’t even get a look in!

“Let’s be straight, we’re less than 12 months away, with everything being done ad hoc. There’s going to be a two-kilometre curtailment and you will only get into Adare if you have a Ryder Cup pass,” he forewarned.

Cllr Teskey, who was already in the rough, was on a roll now with a tale more fantastical than any illustriously visionary Tiger Woods putt shot.

“Elderly people used to commuting in and out, are going to find that they will be acting unlawfully if they go into the village. I can’t have criminals made out of people that I represent,” he seethed.

Long-suffering Director of Services for the Adare-Rathkeale district, Mr Vincent Murray, made it perfectly clear to the unstoppable worm-burner that the Council had no intention of locking up Adare pensioners and throwing away the keys.

“There’s no mention of stopping people coming into the village to do their normal business. To say otherwise is very headline grabbing, but it isn’t the truth,” Cllr Collins pointed out.

There was no getting through to Teskey. In his blinkered little bunker, Collins was going to be jailer for the duration of next year’s Ryder Cup . He was not for turning.

“This is why I don’t speak at meetings, because you make s**t of everything I say,” she declared.