WITH a straight face, Dick Spring introduced Labour's Dublin campaign poster and declared that this was not a votecatching offensive.
"But, Tanaiste, why are we here then?" asked journalists plaintively. They had been summoned to the east end of Stephen's Green yesterday to behold the poster of Labour's Dublin TDs and Ministers. All 12 of them stand in happy formation before the Customs House.
"Making the Difference in Dublin," yelled the slogan. Words are not meant to be illuminating at election time.
The election date had not been agreed, the Tanaiste said earnestly. A November election "cannot be ruled out at this stage". His TDs and Ministers chortled knowingly at their leader's little joke.
Over in Leinster House, rural TDs heaved bundles of Oireachtas paper into car boots before heading home and Nora Owen prepared to chair a meeting of Fine Gael Ministers of State and chairpersons of committees for art election "briefing and policy consultation".
June 6th is the date on every one's lips as polling day. It falls, by sheer coincidence, in the week when social welfare, increases will be paid.
Never mind, the Tanaiste vowed the election date had not been fixed or agreed. But why had Labour decided on a Dublin campaign poster? Well, said Mr Spring, he had been driving around the country and seen the posters of other parties and "I thought we should do so as well".
May Day was "an appropriate occasion to launch this campaign poster", particularly given that Labour's "sister party" in Britain was on the brink of victory and "we expect to talk to Tony Blair in the next 24 hours as Prime Minister".
"We want to raise the level of consciousness among the people of Dublin about what the Labour deputies have done ... Today is obviously very Dublin specific," he said.
A few hours later, the Central Bank would announce a half of 1 per cent rise in interest rates but Mr Spring and his Finance Minister, Ruairi Quinn, and the cheerful gang were as yet blissfully unaware of the gloomy tidings.