Northern Ireland politics entered the Cork South Central by-election yesterday when the Sinn Fein chairman said IRA decommissioning was achievable if other elements of the Belfast Agreement were made to happen.
Opening the campaign of Mr Henry Cremin, the party's candidate in Cork, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin said the IRA had already delivered one ceasefire and remarkably a second one. Now it was time for the agreement to be implemented.
He said Mr David Trimble had decommissioning within his grasp and that it was up to him to ensure that the various strands of the agreement were put in place.
But he warned that dissident unionists could weaken the agreement by causing fear among their own people, and that they would do so unless Mr Trimble exercised control over them.
Meanwhile, the bookies in Cork yesterday placed Mr Simon Coveney of Fine Gael as odds-on favourite at 4-9; Fianna Fail's Ms Sinead Behan was given odds of 74; Labour's Mr Toddy O'Sullivan was 9-2; and Mr Dan Boyle of the Green Party was available at 12-1.
But that was not the whole story.
Mr Paul Daly, a spokesman for Labour, said his party was concerned that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael were ail and Fine Gael supporters were suspected of getting supporters to place wagers so as to improve the position of their own candidates. Ms Behan rejected the claim, saying it was not up to the bookmakers to give people seats in Dail Eireann. That was up to the people.
Yesterday the former Democratic Left TD, Ms Kathleen Lynch, strongly urged voters to give their first preferences to Mr O'Sullivan.