The big guns rode into Kildare this week to rustle up support for their candidates in the byelection. Kathy Sheridan watched the showdown
North Kildare got the nod from the Big Beasts yesterday when four of them hit the county - The Taoiseach, the Leader of the Opposition, the Minister for Justice and Doc Davis.
Despite wearing the No 1 jersey at Naas racecourse, Doc Davis, a four-time winning racehorse, was not entirely thrilled with his role as visual metaphor for Fine Gael's triumphant gallop up the final furlong with its candidate, young Darren "I've never been on one this size before" Scully, aboard.
"Never work with animals or children," remarked Senator Brian Hayes, snug in his Michelin-man jacket, as the besuited Scully, under his party leader's rather flinching direction, tried to get a leg over a patently contemptuous Doc. Scully is a trier: during a 120 mph car racing stunt at Mondello last weekend, he missed his leader's foot by a toenail.
Finally, after repeated onslaughts, the Doc surrendered. With a half dozen cameras trained on him, he guessed correctly that Fine Gael would bury themselves in manure rather than become an immortal metaphor for pulling up at the last.
Meanwhile, down the town, the Fianna Fáil celebrity circus arrived just as the schools flooded out for lunch. Fluke or a flash of genius? Either way, it generated stunning pictures of dozens of starstruck schoolboys swamping the Taoiseach, clamouring for a handshake. "Howya lads . . . tell your parents and brothers and sisters to vote for Áine now, won't ya?" Afterwards, a 13-year-old examined his own hand in awe. "I shook hands with Bertie," he announced gleefully to a gang who could not have been more impressed had it been Roy Keane.
The candidate, Brady, was accompanied by Beasts of varying size, including her brother Tom Kitt, Willie O'Dea and Conor Lenihan; somewhere between Tesco and Superquinn the entourage swelled to a traffic-stopping 50 or so. Naas was in ferment. Would Fine Gael be hitting the streets, High Noon style, to take them on? "Tell hay-im ahm raidy by-bee, ahm raidy," replied Enda Kenny, in his best Western drawl.
A few miles cross-country in Maynooth, the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, was making an astonishingly timely announcement of €33 million towards childcare. A pure coincidence no doubt that it comes just a week before a byelection in an exploding commuter belt, where mortgage-sized childcare costs happen to be a big issue.
Equally, schools repeatedly betrayed by unfulfilled promises in the past found themselves at the centre of a Big Beast onslaught. At times like this, no school is too small or obscure. In St Anne's of Ardclough, a little outpost between Celbridge and Straffan, the special needs teacher has to work in a converted toilet, the Minister responsible, Mary Hanafin, heard when she visited on Wednesday.
In Navan on Thursday afternoon, at about the same time as Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin was scheduled to join FF candidate Shane Cassells on the trail, Enda Kenny was spearheading what FG called "the largest single concentration of members of any party in Meath since the start of the byelection campaign", with mixed results; one school principal mistook him for the candidate, Shane McEntee.
The question is, will Ardclough or its ilk all over counties Kildare and Meath be heard of again in Big Beast circles after next Friday?
Transport too occupied a large space in Big Beast thinking in both constituencies. Minister for Transport Martin Cullen was led on a jaunt down the N3 at morning rush hour last Tuesday by Shane Cassells. To what effect? The Minister was already aware of the 10-mile car park that is the N3 at rush hour, if only because his fellow Minister, Noel Dempsey, is cursed to use the route almost daily and was just ahead of us in the traffic. But it got his picture in the papers.
Meanwhile, all the Opposition can do is grind its teeth to powder and talk, more in hope than expectation, of an "angry" and "frustrated" electorate. Even Enda Kenny agrees voter anger is not a feature of this peculiarly muted campaign, although he has his own theory about that. "They haven't time for anger," he asserts. "They're too busy . . . but they will express it at the ballot box."
All of which makes any attempt at prediction risky. "It is more difficult to read in these two constituencies," says Kenny. "they're nearly all conurbations, many people are new to the area, you have no way of knowing their intent or their interest levels."
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte, canvassing in Meath and North Kildare during the week, made the same point, noting that in many cases the only people in during daytime canvassing were recent arrivals, many of them shift workers from Eastern Europe.
For what it's worth, in North Kildare the latest betting at Ivan Yates's bookies in Naas is giving the McCreevy seat to the Labour candidate, Paddy MacNamara, who stands at 11/10, followed by Independent candidate Catherine Murphy, FG's Darren Scully and FF's Áine Brady.
County matters: the main issues
Meath
Traffic, traffic, traffic: Most people want the M3 - an to hell with the high kings of Tara.
Transport: Better rail links to Dunboyne and Navan.
Childcare: It is expensive and rare
Incineration: Thousands oppose plans to build an Indaver incinerator two miles from Drogheda and Duleek.
Housing: Bitter anger about unfinished estates.
Education: New primary schools needed urgently.
North Kildare
Traffic, again: Improvements on the N7 cannot come quickly enough, although few believe they will stop gridlock.
Transport: Improved rail services into Dublin needed and better feeder bus services into stations.
Schools: New buildings, extensions and extra special needs help required.
Health: GP shortages; extra resources needed for Naas General Hospital.
Planning: Most people would settle for actually having some.