Constituency profile: Meath East (3 seats redrawn) Meath East is a new constituency in more ways than one. It has been created from the division of the old Meath five-seater constituency into a three-seater where there are just two incumbents, Fianna Fáil Minister of State Mary Wallace and Fine Gael TD Shane McEntee, writes Marie O'Halloran.
That leaves a battle royal for the new third seat and it has been suggested that coastal east Meath will elect its own TD. The seat is being fiercely contested by apparent front-runner Labour Cllr Dominic Hannigan, Fianna Fáil's Thomas Byrne, Fine Gael's Regina Doherty, Seán Ó Buachalla of the Greens, Progressive Democrats candidate Sirena Campbell, Joanne Finnegan of Sinn Féin and Independents, former Labour TD Brian Fitzgerald and community activist A J Cahill.
Meath East is a new constituency too in the context of its transformation from a county of mainly small towns and villages into an almost uninterrupted sprawl of urban mega-towns.
It is a constituency where both the Celtic Tiger boom and its knock-on challenges are obvious.
The population is huge (68,000 potential voters), new (75 per cent of the increased population lived previously in Dublin) and young and that is somewhat reflected in the candidates, most of whom are in the 30 to 50 age bracket. Their relative youth is reflected in technology and the use of internet blogs, and video clips on sites such as votetube.org, with a quirky focus on election issues and candidates.
It remains to be seen how that will affect the vote. What is expected is that the two sitting TDs, Mary Wallace and Shane McEntee are likely to retain their seats. Wallace, who lost her Minister of State status and then regained it last year, has been a TD since 1989. The Ratoath-based deputy runs a tight campaign with an army of supporters.
McEntee, who is based in Nobber was first elected in 2005 following the resignation of former party leader and taoiseach John Bruton and with the help of the "Bruton factor" - a vote that cut across party lines. That is no longer there for McEntee, who has worked hard on the ground at local issues.
The new Fine Gael kid on the block is energetic Regina Doherty, originally from Dublin but living in Meath for the past nine years and based in Ratoath, who runs her own company with her husband. While Fine Gael is aiming for two seats it is highly unlikely, but Doherty is described as a very good candidate and if there were a shock upset, the party might retain the seat, with a different face.
Two of those youthful candidates going head to head are Labour's Dominic Hannigan and Fianna Fáil's Thomas Byrne. This seat has been described as Hannigan's to lose. To win the seat, in the shake-up of the first preference votes he has to be ahead of both Byrne, a solicitor who lives in Grangerath, the largest housing estate in Meath, and former Labour TD Brian Fitzgerald, now running as an independent.
His campaign team has long been ready for the off with 15,000 leaflets distributed on the day the election was called, in a contest where costs could easily top the €30,000 mark. One of the key battlegrounds of the constituency will be in Ashbourne, which to date has no local candidate.
Hannigan, a transport and planning consultant, is hard working, involved in every local issue and has already contested a Dáil election. He ran in the 2005 Meath byelection where he polled 5,567 first preference votes, 11 per cent, which his campaign team have translated into 18 per cent of the Meath East vote. However, Fitzgerald, who resigned from Labour in protest at the merger with Democratic Left, did not contest the by-election, and he could potentially split the vote, giving an advantage to Byrne, a first timer, who has been canvassing assiduously and has the Fianna Fáil machine behind him. A new candidate, independent AJ Cahill, is a community activist who could get a localised vote.
Meath East's problems appear to be ideal territory for the Green Party but its candidate Seán Ó Buachalla, a first timer, who has been involved in the Save Tara campaign, probably needs more time to become an established candidate.
Sinn Féin's vote has been growing but the party's 2002 candidate, Joe Reilly, a virtual electoral certainty in the old constituency, is now in Meath West. The new candidate Joanne Finnegan, is an occupational therapist who lives in Bettystown. The Progressive Democrats candidate Sirena Campbell first ran for the Dáil in the 2005 byelection where she garnered a reasonable 2,679 votes.
As in Finnegan's case, the real interest will be in where her vote goes.
Local Issues
One of the biggest problems is class sizes and lack of primary school provision
In Laytown a controversy has been bubbling for the best part of three years over school accommodation. Some 180 children are in pre-fabs attached to the senior school, with another 110 due to start school in September, and a controversy has erupted over problems with the promised provision of interim accommodation by September.
Housing estates and apartment blocks left unfinished are a major concern, as is unrestrained planning permission; the crushing amount of time spent commuting because of road problems and the controversy surrounding the M3. Anti-social behaviour has increasingly become a problem as has the lack of community facilities.
VERDICT
FG-1
FF-1
Prediction FF- 1; FG - 1; Lab - 1