CONSTITUENCY PROFILE/LAOIS:AT THE last estimate, there were 800 unoccupied or unfinished homes in Portlaoise, the main town of Co Laois.
Most of these are in the estates which grew up around the town to house the celtic tiger generation which commutes to and from Dublin and for the prison staff and decentralised workers from the Department of Agriculture.
Ordinary people in the town who had never dreamed of being a landlords borrowed money from more than willing banks to purchase. Now they can barely pay the mortgages on their own homes.
Similar problems exist in Portarlington, Mountmellick and other new commuter towns and in the villages around the county.
Against this background, the electoral contest in the county should be a very interesting one indeed.
Fianna Fáil faces the enormous task of taking control of the 25-seat council which it lost in 2004 having wrestled control from a Fine Gael/Labour/Independent coalition in 1985 which had held it in an iron grip for decades.
Up until then, for instance, a local Fine Gael councillor, Tom Keenan, had held the chairmanship of the council for 13 terms.
Fianna Fáil under new bloods like John Maloney took the county for Fianna Fáil in 1985 by winning 14 of the 25 seats, but lost control again after the 2004 local elections where they took only 11 seats.
A fairly unique coalition which involves Fine Gael with Sinn Féin, Labour, Independents and a former PD has shut Fianna Fáil out of power.
Fianna Fáil seems to have more than its share of difficulties in the county, not least the fact that Michael Moloney, who was a Fianna Fáil councillor who replaced his brother Minister of State John Moloney on the council, is now running as an Independent.
Fine Gael is fielding 17 candidates in the five electoral areas, including well-known faces already on the council such as William Aird, John Bonham and Michael Lalor.
Labour is also hoping the expected anti-Government swing will deliver more than just one seat this time by running Jim O’Brien, Fiona Lynch and Margaret Guijt Lawlor in the Emo area.
Fianna Fáil is running 29 candidates in all, and they will include sitting members like Brendan Phelan, Raymond Cribbin and Catherine Fitzgerald.
Sinn Féin is also seeking to expand its base by running six candidates to supplement its local councillor Brian Stanley. Marie Johnston has been selected and Stephen Lynch will be running in the Mountmellick area.
Observers in the constituency expect little or no change in the rural electoral areas, but say the real battle will take place in the expanded towns of Portlaoise and Mountmellick.
There should also be great interest in the Portlaoise urban council election where Ireland’s first black mayor, Independent councillor Rotimi Adebari, from Nigeria, elected in 2007, will be seeking to regain his seat.