PRIVATE opinion polls suggest Senator John Farrelly will gain a seat for Fine Gael in Meath at the expense of Labour but with Fianna Fail relying on a little known candidate from north Meath to give it three of the five seats, the destination of the last seat is still hard to call.
With all the political parties concentrating on Navan, where the population within a three mile radius has shot up to 25,000, the Taoiseach made a well publicised visit to the town only days before calling the election to unveil IDA plans for a 100 acre high technology park on the banks of the Boyne.
To make sure the voters remember what the Taoiseach has done for his home patch, the party published an eight page supplement with last week's Meath Chronicle recalling his achievements. These ranged from bringing natural gas to Navan to relocating EU personnel from Brussels to a new Product Control Centre near Trim. The newspaper supplement also focused on the extra funding diverted to the constituency: £4 million for a new bridge in Navan, £3 million for a new school in Trim, £600,000 for the Boyne Valley and £291,000 for sports and community groups.
Fianna Fail protested that some of these projects were being announced for the third time and last weekend the party was preparing to publish its own newsletter showing its contribution to the county.
Irrespective of who gains the credits in pork barrel politics, there is no disputing the statistics which show that Fianna Fail won three of the five seats in the 1992 general election with over 45 per cent of the first preference votes. Fine Gael could muster only 26.48 per cent, while Labour surprised everyone with 17.55 per cent.
Fianna Fail's Colm Hilliard is not running this time and, after failing to persuade GAA footballer Colm O'Rourke to accept a nomination, the party is fielding three candidates instead of the usual four.
Last time out Fianna Fail's Noel Dempsey easily headed the poll, leaving the Fine Gael leader to pick up the third seat after Labour's Brian Fitzgerald. Hilliard's retirement will allow Dempsey to copperfasten his already powerful position in Navan and south Meath.
No one doubts but that Dempsey and Bruton will easily exceed the quota but party strategists acknowledge that too many votes for either of them could jeopardise their running mates. Farrelly will need all the help he can get from the Taoiseach and equally Fianna Fail's third candidate John Brady, could be in trouble if Dempsey takes a disproportionate share of the first preference votes.
Although he has not held a Dail seat for the past five years, John Farrelly continues to be described as a TD in the telephone directory. "I never bothered to change the entry . . . it never crossed my mind." Even Fianna Fail accepts that he will be reelected as a TD next week.
Brady, a small farmer in a county noted for its large farms, has been left to toil mainly in north Meath, where he is campaigning to halt the decline in the local population.
Fianna Fail's outgoing TD Mary Wallace has been showing up badly in the party's most recent constituency poll but with a new strategy of allocating clearly defined areas of the county to each candidate, she is still expected to pick up sufficient votes in Ashbourne, Dunshaughlin and Dunboyne.
Labour's Brian Fitzgerald, a nephew of the former GAA celebrity, Senator Jack Fitzgerald, did exceptionally well in the last election, winning 8,967 first preference votes and a Dail seat on his first outing. But, just as the formidable Jimmy Tully always found it difficult to retain his seat in Meath, Fitzgerald could lose out if the projected swing against Labour materialises.
