McDowell on law and order trail

Campaign trail: Being Minister for Justice is a bit like serving a suspended prison sentence. Everywhere you go you have to report to the local Garda station. Michael McDowell reported to no fewer that six of them yesterday, as part of his punishment for aiding and abetting the PD byelection canvass in North Kildare.

Most of the stations had never seen a serving justice minister before. But in Naas, where Máire Geoghegan-Quinn once paid a visit in that role, a search for the distinguished visitors book proved fruitless. Gardaí had to make do with taking a photograph.

There was an added reason for the itinerary in that the party's candidate - Senator Kate Walsh - is the widow of a former Garda sergeant in Celbridge, one of the stations visited. If nothing else, the PDs' Kildare campaign is on the right side of the law. But despite being one of the outsiders, Senator Walsh insists she has a realistic chance of switching chambers in Leinster House later this month.

A community activist in Celbridge for 30 years, she was a reluctant convert to party politics when Mary Harney twisted her arm in 2002. The decision to join the PDs cost her some of the supporters who had made her an Independent councillor, she admits. But she still polled 4,000 votes in the general election, "and if it had been a four-seater, I was in".

She concedes too that decades of fundraising for schools and delivering meals on wheels for the elderly did not make her a natural PD candidate. But she is a big admirer of the Tánaiste, and craves the honour of succeeding Charlie McCreevy - long portrayed as the PD wing of Fianna Fáil. "There will never be a greater minister for finance," she says.

Ms Walsh drives her own campaign vehicle - a white tradesman's van - and had Mr McDowell as a passenger throughout yesterday's tour. Suffice to say her driving incurred no penalty points. In fact, her insistence on observing speed limits and showing courtesy to other road users must have puzzled those who didn't know that White-van Man in this case was the Minister for Justice. On the steps of yet another Garda station, in Clane, Mr McDowell returned to his favourite theme of late - praising the McCartney family for their stand against the IRA, and saying it was up to Sinn Féin now to make a decision on the "Siamese twin" relationship with its armed wing. But Sinn Féin has no candidate in North Kildare, and beyond a few people saying "well done", the Minister admits that local issues will decide the byelection.

Senator Walsh expects the fall-out from the recent Supreme Court judgment to dominate when Ms Harney joins her for a tour of nursing homes later this week.