Sunday, September 02, 2007
At the races
The holiday season is well and truly over. I went hiking in the Tatra mountains in Slovakia and then I went down to Istria in Croatia to lie on a beach for a week. Both places were very relaxing and I got plently of sleep.
The day before I was due to come back I got a text message simply saying that "Pat's gone". For the next hour I was on the phone trying to determine exactly which Pat we were talking about and where he had departed to. Once I managed to work out the details I got to thinking abot the situation. The phone was buzzing all afternoon and included a call from the Sunday Business Post, asking we to write a piece for the paper.
After dinner I found an internet cafe and wrote up the article and sent it to the Editor. Then I managed to get to a local cafe for a few last drinks of the holiday.
When I got home the next day there were various messages at the office. I knew I would be supporting Eamon Gilmore and I informed him of this.
Monday was busy, what with starting to catch up with constituency work and ringing around branch memebrs to get their feel about the leadership campaign. I was delighted to receive a call from Eamon G, asking me to chair the campaign, which I immediately accepted. Throughout the week I worked on putting a structure around things.
Bellewstown Races were in full swing when I arrived there on Thursday evening. I got to speak to people from all over the county. I met Councillor Jimmy Cudden and his family and chatted to them for a while. They had just backed a winner so were in great form. I also met a few people from the Drogheda Independent, who had taken a table at the event.
The big story of the week was the loss of over 200 jobs in the local Coke factory. It's a big blow to Drogheda and East Meath and certainly we all need to work together to try and ensure that more jobs come to the town as quickly as possible to make up for this loss.
The day before I was due to come back I got a text message simply saying that "Pat's gone". For the next hour I was on the phone trying to determine exactly which Pat we were talking about and where he had departed to. Once I managed to work out the details I got to thinking abot the situation. The phone was buzzing all afternoon and included a call from the Sunday Business Post, asking we to write a piece for the paper.
After dinner I found an internet cafe and wrote up the article and sent it to the Editor. Then I managed to get to a local cafe for a few last drinks of the holiday.
When I got home the next day there were various messages at the office. I knew I would be supporting Eamon Gilmore and I informed him of this.
Monday was busy, what with starting to catch up with constituency work and ringing around branch memebrs to get their feel about the leadership campaign. I was delighted to receive a call from Eamon G, asking me to chair the campaign, which I immediately accepted. Throughout the week I worked on putting a structure around things.
Bellewstown Races were in full swing when I arrived there on Thursday evening. I got to speak to people from all over the county. I met Councillor Jimmy Cudden and his family and chatted to them for a while. They had just backed a winner so were in great form. I also met a few people from the Drogheda Independent, who had taken a table at the event.
The big story of the week was the loss of over 200 jobs in the local Coke factory. It's a big blow to Drogheda and East Meath and certainly we all need to work together to try and ensure that more jobs come to the town as quickly as possible to make up for this loss.
# posted by Senator Dominic Hannigan @ 9:53 AM 
