"Election 2007" posters of Fianna Fáil candidates went up on roadsides in Co Kilkenny yesterday as Opposition leader Enda Kenny opened the Iverk agricultural show, attended by an estimated 20,000 people in the village of Piltown.
Fine Gael responded with colour posters of the local Dáil candidate, Senator John Paul Phelan, and party workers distributed election literature showing all three candidates for the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency. Members of the Oireachtas and councillors from both parties manned party-sponsored tents offering free refreshments and attracted large crowds.
Mr Kenny told his audience that "this will be the most exciting election in 25 years", that "red tape" is "strangling farmers all over the country" and that Fine Gael in power would fight to secure its future in a "difficult global environment". He recounted an anecdote about a five-year-old girl who told her mother in a Dublin market recently that "chicken doesn't come out of a packet" and said it was "vital that we reconnect the farmer with the consumer".
He called on local planning authorities to facilitate farmers' markets in every town. Fine Gael will set up a "new superfood agency and promote a 'Green Ireland' brand logo on all Irish foods sold at home and overseas".
Mr Kenny then went on a walk-about, saying he wanted "to shake those strong Kilkenny hands and listen to the jingle of All-Ireland medals" although he scrupulously avoided upstaging members of the Kilkenny hurling team who attended with the Liam McCarthy Cup. But he said that just as Kilkenny hurlers had prevented Cork from "winning the treble" last Sunday, he hoped to "stop Bertie winning three-in-a-row" next year.
He is "looking forward to the long campaign" and will spend 14 hours in the adjacent constituency of Wexford today.
Mr Kenny toured the showgrounds of what is Ireland's oldest agricultural show, now in its 180th year. The traditional end-of-harvest event is a combination of trade fair, showjumping trials and competitive displays of livestock and farm produce.
