COLUMN: 'Garda Kevin Flatley was actually a student garda in Clonmel in the late 1990s'

Hi everyone!! The weather has been amazing, but it looks like the Government will be encountering a huge storm this week as they dramatically underestimated my advocacy once again – big mistake!!

So I’ll bring you my own news first, before we get to all of the other amazing political gossip stories!!

THE ‘COALITION OF THE OPPOSITION’ EMERGES!!

The RTE 9 o’clock news broke my story last week that I’d put together a ‘Coalition of the Opposition’, the first time that any civilian has ever managed to do that in Ireland’s history!!

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When I was up in Leinster House for three days a fortnight ago, I convinced all the party leaders to back my Dáil Motion so that the Government could finally be put under pressure about the failure to assess autistic children in time!!

My hard work is now in the public domain and as you read this, 5 ½ hours of Dáil time will be used to debate how the Government is breaking the Assessments of Needs law by not assessing kids within six months.

They’re running out of road bigtime now, so the time for ACTION has come!! Stay tuned to the media this week because sparks are going to fly!!

‘THE FIRECRACKER’ FACES OFF WITH YOURS TRULY!!

And to try and secure real change in the children disability world, I knew that I’d have to face off with the one person who’s directly responsible for changing the disability laws!!

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So, last Friday I had a huge showdown with the Minister for Disability and Children Norma ‘The Firecracker’ Foley, which was a big opportunity for me to directly lobby a Minister with real influence!!

It was my third time meeting ‘The Firecracker’ so I used the hour to hammer home my points and tell her what the Government can expect from my amazingly positive protest this week!!

Hopefully I’ll have some brilliant stories from my protest for you all next week!! Watch this space!!

‘THE COBRA’ BITES THE DRIVING TESTS!!

So there was huge drama in the Dáil this week when the Opposition attacked the Government over the shockingly long driving test waiting times, which now stands at an average of 27 weeks nationally, OMG!!

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Just when they thought they’d won the fight, in stepped Minister Sean ‘The Cobra’ Canney, and by heck did he bite hard!! ‘The Cobra’ decided that he wouldn’t play politics and actually said that he’ll get the waiting times down to 10 weeks by the autumn!!

The Dáil was in shock, with politicians fainting everywhere!! It just can’t be – a Minister giving a real commitment in a short timeframe!!

It was like watching the Red Sea parting!!

Well fair play to ‘The Cobra’ for talking tough – but let’s hope he won’t choke on his own tongue come the autumn!!

‘JOLLY’ AND ‘THE BOMBER’ TAKE LEINSTER HOUSE BY STORM!!

Did anyone see that Tipperary Councillors ‘Jolly’ John O’Heney and Liam ‘The Bomber’ Browne took over Leinster House for a day!!

The boys were up to solve lots of Tipperary-based problems, and to take on a few national issues. I’m actually shocked that they didn’t convince the powers that be to move Leinster House to Cashel, because these guys would sell snow to the eskimos!!

Joking aside, I’ve been to Leinster House myself over 100 times and I always love seeing our councillors up there pushing local issues, so fair play to the boys!!

THE ‘BIKE-SHED’ DRAMATICALLY RETURNS!!

I think everyone remembers the infamous ‘bike shed’ in Leinster House – yes, the one that cost €335,000 to build, that one!!

So after months & months of a huge investigation, the big report arrived, and it found that….. wait for it...there was no consideration given to looking at value for money!!

Gasp, shock, horror!! And apparently nobody even asks any questions for projects that cost under half a million, wow!! And I kept flicking through the report to find the name(s) of the people responsible for this fiasco, as we’d need to get the execution squad ready to go!!

So I can now reveal the name of the culprit(s) as…drumroll… NOBODY!! You really couldn’t make this up – they wasted a third of a million, but nobody is responsible!! Now you know why I call Leinster House ‘Fraggle Rock’!!!

‘THE REAL DEAL’ STANDS UP FOR GAZA!!

‘The Tetchy Taoiseach’ is coming under serious pressure over the deaths in Gaza, which isn’t a laughing manner. But can you imagine the shock on Micheál Martin’s face when Clonmel’s resident ninja Seamus ‘The Real Deal’ Healy flew into the Dáil doing a triple somersault before launching into the Taoiseach!!

And what was ‘The Real Deal’s’ allegation??

Simple – that the Taoiseach just isn’t shouting loudly enough internationally about Gaza. I think I counted 5 times when Seamus said something like “Please, please do more!”

The Taoiseach, normally tetchy, was incredibly respectful and undertook to shout a bit louder. I’m 100% convinced that it’s his ninja somersaults and karate chops that make Seamus the Dáil’s most formidable Deputy!! And if anyone claims that Seamus can’t do somersaults at his age – well I saw it first-hand and I won’t allow any ageism in this column!!

‘POISONOUS’ PUTIN GOES AWOL AGAIN!!

Is there anything worse than a bride who doesn’t show up to the church!!

So it was last week when the whole world put pressure on the Russian President to show up in Turkey to meet face to face with Ukrainian President ‘Zippy’ Zelensky to end the war!! Unfortunately, ‘Poisonous’ was too busy playing ludo, painting his nails or doing his hair (oh sorry he doesn’t have any!!).

How dare he!! Why does he not want to play with ‘Zippy’!! And then we had Donald ‘The Don’ Trump saying that he knew that Putin wouldn’t show up, “because he knew I wasn’t going.” OMG you wouldn’t see this in a primary school yard!!

Isn’t it great to know that our World is in safe hands!!

THE HIP SCANDAL RAISES THE TEMPERATURE IN THE DÁIL!!

Wow there was a huge row in the Dáil last Wednesday as ‘The Magician’ Mary Lou McDonald laid into ‘The Tetchy Taoiseach’ over the thousands of young children who have had unnecessary hip surgeries. The Taoiseach said he’s waiting on an internal audit report to find out how many children are affected, but the Opposition clearly believe that he knows much more than what he's letting on!!

This issue isn’t actually a laughing matter and could well become one of the biggest scandals of our time, which is why I’m covering it.

How the hell is someone going to explain what actually happened to these thousands of children!!?? Expect HUGE rows in the Dáil over the coming weeks!!

RTE SPLASHES OUT AGAIN!!

Ah yes, it wouldn’t be a political gossip week without another cash scandal at RTE!!

Now they’re going to splash out €500,000 of taxpayers’ money on putting their branding on cups, pencils, T-shirts, etc!!

Personally, I think they should go the whole way and really flog the taxpayers’ money – maybe buy a submarine with ‘RTE’ on it, or why not a private jet that matches Trump and his airplane’s logo!!

Or wait for it – bring back Ryan ‘Tubs’ Tubridy and pay him €1million…per episode!!

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As I said before, I can’t wait to see episode one of the RTE show when they next get hauled into a Dáil Committee to answer hard questions!! Get the popcorn ready!!

FINALLY, A REFLECTION……

I want to end this week on a sombre note by saying how devastated I was by the passing of Garda Kevin Flatley last week in Dublin, a story that dominated the news cycle.

My Dad worked on the same unit as him in Pearse Street and described him as a true and loyal servant.

Most people don’t know that Kevin was actually a student garda in Clonmel in the late 1990s and he loved his time here in county Tipperary.

At my protest, I will wear a garda badge in honour of Kevin’s courage and service.

The quote on Muhammad Ali’s gravestone is so appropriate here - “Service to others is the rent we pay for our room in Heaven.”

Kevin’s rent is well and truly paid.

Rest well, true and loyal servant.

See you next week everyone. Cara. xxxx