Dublin South East (or Dublin Bay South) has seen some unusual forms of promotion by politicians over the years, including former Progressive Democrat TD Michael McDowell famously shinning up a ladder to put up eye-catching posters.

But in a new departure one of the constituency’s leading TDs has taken to the digital space in search of support from tech-savvy constituents.

Lucinda Creighton of the Reform Alliance has periodically taken out adverts on Facebook to promote her home page. She has explained that her budget is quite limited and the ads run for a very limited time period – two weeks in her case.

"I switched my personal page to a public one earlier this year, so I now use Facebook to share my blogs, my weekly column for the Daily Mail, press releases, Dáil speeches, constituency news and initiatives as well as photographs."

The results have been excellent, according to Ms Creighton, with a high hit rate as well as good penetration for very little cost. MICHAEL O’REGAN