It's strange how location alters your perception of news. Had I been in Dublin the recent resignation of the CIE chairman, and the story of how Mary O'Rourke heard it on in the radio, while having a bath, would have been, well, hilarious. So hilarious, it could easily have blurred some of the information contained in Brian Joyce's resignation letter, something about Luas costing 50 per cent of CIE's capital budget, all to transport 10 per cent more of Dublin's commuters into the city centre?

While O'Rourke was washing that man out of her hair, we - the great unwashed in rural Ireland - were still scratching our heads over those two percentage figures. Half of CIE's capital budget to be spent in the capital city, just to make it easier for 10 per cent of the commuter population?

This means that the other half of the budget for upgrading and improvement of services will be spread nationwide and, in true parochial fashion, I have to ask, what precisely then will be left for counties such as Leitrim? Since budgets seem to be allocated on the basis of population, what percentage will we get to transport our population?

Presuming that everybody here doesn't just eventually get fed up, lose heart and move lock, stock and barrel to Dublin to partake in the Luas lunacy.

Carrick-on-Shannon should be a two-hour trip from Dublin - if we had a proper road or rail transport system. It currently takes nearly two hours 45 minutes by train, and if I'm collecting Tony from the station, it takes another hour and a half to get from Manorhamilton and back. This is the combined result of an old, poorly equipped train and the bad roads of the local infrastructure.

While driving to the station recently, there was an accident near Kilargue. A small car with a driver and passenger went off the road, down an incline, and crashed into a tree in the field below. I wouldn't have known this, even though the car was only just ahead of me, except that the woman driving the car in front spotted their brake lights disappearing off the road. She flagged me down for support and we stood there in pitch darkness calling into the vacuum, hoping that the people were still alive.

There are, of course, no street lights to assist you in this situation. Reassured by the sound of one voice, I got into my car and drove about a mile up the road to the nearest house, where a man very kindly offered a torch and his assistance. Eventually, with the help of his light, the two men in the car made their way to the road, where their cuts and bruises were obvious. Torch-man then took the two men back into Manorhamilton to the hospital.

On the way back, having collected Tony from Carrick, I stopped the car where the accident had happened. It took about 10 minutes before our eyes adjusted to the dark, and he could make out the shape of the car in the tree. So here is the news from Leitrim. Everybody, not just those battling with city traffic, is entitled to safe and efficient road and rail transport.

It is not just that reaching a place such as Manorhamilton, or Leitrim Village, or Carrick-on-Shannon, takes longer than it should do in the 20th century, and that the journey's end is wrapped in roads that in parts could only be described as pre-historic. It is not fair that there is no equitable distribution of public funds which would help to bring life and industry back into a county like Leitrim, and frankly, what a politician's ablutions have to do with providing the solution is beyond me.

It's not about numbers, it's about equality, and sure we give everybody over the age of 65 right the right to travel for free, it's just that we forget some people don't have anywhere to go, because to get to the nearest bus, they have to be able to drive.

It may sound like a worn-out cliche that people in rural Ireland are tired of centralised investment, but how do you say something over and over without it becoming a cliche? The same way you can talk about having a bath I suppose, when the realities of Luas are put into the public domain.

It's what makes single-issue candidates such a reality in Irish rural politics, because people in rural Ireland have long realised that calls for democracy and equity will not be heard. That the most efficient way is to do what you do best, be parochial and be damned.

Independent or single-issue politicians may wear funny hats, and sound like D'Unbelievables - they do, however, look after their own. If that's parish-pump so be it, perhaps I'll see the light of democracy, when it blinks at me some day, from a roadside in Kilargue.