Fianna Fail will be positioned to retain its second seat in North Tipperary following the retirement of Michael O'Kennedy and despite the selection convention which left party members divided, Michael Smith TD believes.
Mr Smith, the Minister for Defence, entered politics 30 years ago. He failed to be selected at the recent convention and raised eyebrows recently when he waved the retirement card after the prospect arose of three candidates running for the two seats. After his defeat at the convention the Fianna Fail National Executive intervened to impose the Minister, in place of Cllr Tom Harrington who was choosen at convention.
Mr Smith had made it clear he believed it would be "political suicide" to have himself, Cllr Maire Hoctor and Cllr Harrington running alongside each other. He said he would have retired rather than run the three-horse race.
"All three of us would be in the north of North Tipperary. It is a very key marginal constituency in terms of returning two seats. Michael O'Kennedy and myself have done it most times with nothing to spare," he says.
But, as expected, Mr Harrington's recommendation as a candidate was not ratified by the National Executive this week and now he is being asked to run for the Seanad instead.
"I have every confidence that he will be in the next Oireachtas," Mr Smith says.
As a supporter in the Michael O'Kennedy camp, Mr Harrington will be instrumental in "helping us to secure the two seats", he adds, pointing to the "immaculate" vote transferring which occurred in the past when either he or his long-time rival, Mr O'Kennedy, headed the poll.
With the seat occupied by the Independent TD, Michael Lowry, very secure, the competition in the next election will come from the Fine Gael councillor, Noel Coonan, and the Labour senator, Kathleen O'Meara. "I have to beat Coonan and Maire Hoctor has to beat O'Meara, and I think we will," he says.
He will be judged on what he has delivered to North Tipperary and, specifically, to Roscrea, his home town. He defends his record, saying that about £14 million in State funds has poured into the region over the past three years. But Roscrea, far from any major urban centres, needs new employment opportunities, as highlighted in a recent development plan, despite the imminent decentralisation move of 25 Civil Defence personnel to the town.
"You are a long distance from the airports and the seaports. We have the same kinds of problems in Thurles, the same kinds of problems in Temple more. All the central midland towns have that difficulty," he says.
He has been "amazed" at the media attention on the transfer of part of the Civil Defence to Roscrea and the sense that there is something "fundamentally wrong" with a minister giving preference to his home area. He has any eye on getting re-elected and "all politics is local". He says the midlands is entitled to "some whack out of the decentralisation programme".
He recently signalled a preference to be the next Minister for Agriculture, "in the post-election period". It would not be an ambition shared by many of his colleagues, but he contends that no brief is easy after getting through the minefield of Army deafness claims, barracks closures and the White Paper on Defence.
He describes the period of the deafness claims, before payments were standardised, as "an extraordinary campaign by a minority of people in the law business". "We had firms that were holding seminars. In one case, we had a member of a law firm visiting one of our hospitals, going around from bed to bed."
He talks of synchronising relatively low numbers of trained Defence Forces personnel with sophisticated equipment as the way forward, but the twin commitments of UNIFIL obligations and forming part of the rapid reaction force in Europe will stretch resources. He has indicated that Irish troops in south Lebanon will be pulled out by the end of 2001.
Currently, however, the troops' safety is being considered as the Middle East peace process deteriorates.
"So far, everything is calm enough as far as we are concerned. It is something that has to be monitored."
He is not "in principle" against non-nationals being recruited to the Defence Forces, after the call was made earlier this week by PDFORRA, the association representing non-commissioned ranks.
"The question of minority groups is something that I am going to look seriously at. We are going through a phenomenal change and there is still a lot of change required before we are able to adjust to, if you like, the cultural shock of multi-ethnic groups being available for that type of employment." But there is a sense that he would prefer a brief more related to people's everyday lives.
As Minister for the Environment, the former Cabinet position he held, his tightening of drink-driving laws was unpopular in some quarters "in a rural constituency where people said to me `You have to be stone mad politically', but the people did not let me down".
However, the electorate can be fickle. First elected to the Dail at the age of 23 in 1969, he lost his seat in 1973, regained it in 1977, but was defeated again in the elections of February and November, 1982. Back in the Dail in 1987, he was sacked as a junior minister in 1989 for supporting a no-confidence motion in the then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey. He was appointed Minister for the Environment in 1992 in the Albert Reynolds-led government.
Asked about the abortion debate and the sought-for referendum, he says he will wait on the final report to be made to Government by the Committee on the Constitution but believes the issue will be difficult to solve "without reference to the people".
"I am a father of seven. I don't like saying who are pro-life supporters and who are not because I really, genuinely believe that the vast majority of people in the country are very strongly pro-life in its total and positive sense, but I will never be the judge or the jury of anybody else because I do not know their particular problems and their particular circumstances."
The cynical attitude towards politicians is not justified, he believes, "in terms of the lifestyle and work we have to do", but he looks forward to the political process getting through a period of "replenishment".
His former party colleague, Liam Lawlor, should face questions in the Flood tribunal, he believes. "In the great lot of cases people do not have very much to answer for so they might as well go in and answer it and get rid of it rather than have it festering on."