Every year without fail right throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Borris-in-Ossory Labour councillor Jimmy Kelly would wait his chance and inevitably it would come. The publication of the IDA annual report would give Jimmy his opportunity to make his annual comment on the job statistics in his native county.
On the floor of the Laois County Council chamber, Jimmy would brandish the report, saying, "I am saying it year in, year out, Laois is now the hind tit when it comes to IDA jobs."
Colourful rural language you might say, but Jimmy was not just the master of the metaphor and the headline-grabbing sound-bite before it was invented, he was also correct in what he was saying. Jimmy has retired from the council and the IDA figures come out every year at just the same time and Jimmy is still right in his assertion.
This week's IDA annual report confirmed that Laois was the worst county for industrial job creation in the worst-performing region, the midlands, in the Republic.
Although jobs in IDA-backed companies grew from 116,578 to 125,111 nationally, the number of such jobs in the midlands actually fell from 6,553 to 6,093.
After suffering a net decline of 370 jobs last year, largely due to the closure of the Avon Arlington factory in Portarlington, Laois remains at the bottom of the pile for industrial jobs with a grand total of 386 jobs spread throughout six companies.
The county's dismal job creation record looks even worse when compared to its neighbours such as Offaly, Westmeath and Kildare. The consensus locally is that Laois lacks political clout nationally with midlands Cabinet Ministers Ms O'Rourke, Mr Cowen and Mr McCreevy looking after their own.
Laois failed to get any of the 17,000 new jobs created by the IDA last year and with installations such as Intel in Leixlip announcing a further 500 jobs this week in a plant which already employs 4,300, Laois can only look on in envy.
Local Fine Gael councillor Charles Flanagan TD is enraged that there are now four jobs task forces in the midlands but no replacement factory has been found for Avon Arlington. And according to newly-elected Portlaoise town commissioner Martin Dunne, the only thing the former C&M factory in Portlaoise has produced in the past year is "cobwebs".
Locals say Laois must be the only place in Ireland where the last local election count was held in an unoccupied factory in the county town.
The local Chamber of Commerce president, Pat Miller, is pinning his hopes on a promise made by the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, that the IDA will deliver to Laois before the end of March. He is expecting 300 jobs to be created in an advance factory in the town.
Meanwhile the midland regions IDA managers have agreed to address a special meeting of Laois County Council on February 7th. They will be defending their record in the same chamber where Jimmy Kelly's words still ring true.