Council Affairs - Holidays are coming

HOLIDAYS are coming, you say! Is that a glowing convoy of red festive trucks driving through a snowy landscape?

Is that a glowing convoy of red festive trucks driving through a snowy landscape, I see? Or have they been messing around with the AI down in Merchants Quay again?

And just when the gang down in Limerick City and How’s Your Father had our pulses racing with excitement at the prospect of a schmaltzy festive season of Polar Express proportions.

They built us up, had us chugging along on the good ship computer-generated mediocrity, only for it to career off the track and send all submissions — pleading for The Crescent to be closed this Christmas — up in a puff of counterfeit smoke.

The Council’s Christmas video did not live up to the promises on its shiny artificial tin. As it turns out, there will be no zombified revellers trudging around the ice rink in Arthur’s Quay, looking like they have been riding piebald ponies for weeks on end — without reprieve.

Limerick’s citizens will not be shuffling around King John’s Castle lost in some Halloween parade that never was malaise. And please God, tourists visiting the city won’t think we’re all off of our heads on bags of yokes up on O’Connell Avenue, hence the snail’s pace and vacant stares over a spot of croquet.

Oh, but how the Council’s communications and marketing creatives have hurt our hearts with their tricky ways. And our councillors, who love Christmas most of all, have now put the local authority on their naughty list for 2026.

“AI slop,” was what butter-wouldn’t-melt Social Democrats councillor Shane Hickey-O’Mara made of this conniving ruse.

While Fine Gael man Daniel Butler hit out that it was all a bit “amateurish”.

“Giving the creative potential and creative skills within our own community, I would have liked to have seen those leveraged rather than using AI,” he told the red-faced executive.

Cllr Sarah Kiely was starting to think it must be time for The Late Late Show Christmas onesie and tucking into the Milk Tray while watching “the Limerick version of The Polar Express”.

“By God, we need to look at our communications and marketing strategy, how they’re funded, and how public money is spent on a mishmash of a mess,” she barked.

Young Dan McSweeney likened the Council and their use of AI, as well as closing the comments section on their social media, to the action of Bond baddies!

“There was clearly an outpouring of negative criticism about this, and rightly so. Turning off the comments on social media is not a legitimate response,” she insisted.

Oh, well, a future where Council staff are relieved of menial work using AI capabilities, could certainly prove problematic. God help us all!