Yates and Howlin join the action for FG and Labour council seats in Wexford

Wexford sees a return of the heavy hitters with two former ministers, Mr Ivan Yates and Mr Brendan Howlin, seeking to regain their county council seats.

Neither will have any difficulty in getting elected, but the question is whether they can capitalise on their personal support to give Fine Gael and Labour the extra seats they need to be in a dominant position on the council.

Mr Yates is going head to head with the Fianna Fail TD, ,Mr John Browne. Both aim to give their parties three out of the five seats, but might just have to settle for two each. A sitting independent councillor, Mr Sean Doyle, will not be easily dislodged, while a Labour newcomer, Ms Winnie O'Leary, is running a strong campaign.

Mr Howlin faces an equally intense battle in Wexford town, a Labour stronghold where, surprisingly, the party holds just one of the six county council seats. This time there is an extra seat to play for and the Labour deputy leader is confident that both he and Cllr Tommy Carr will make it.

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are also hoping to pick up extra seats here, from two and one respectively, but may be thwarted by the sitting independents, Mr Padge Reck and the current council chairman, Mr Leo Carthy. The Sinn Fein candidate, Mr Maurice Roche, is also running a good campaign and might just take a seat.

Perhaps the biggest scrap of all will take place in Gorey, which lost one of its five seats when the electoral boundaries were redrawn, a move which has had the Fine Gael TD, Mr Michael d'Arcy, fuming about "a Fianna Fail plot".

No one is seriously questioning the integrity of the Electoral Area Boundary Committee which drew up the new electoral divisions throughout the State, but Mr d'Arcy is irked that a Fine Gael stronghold - the party won three out of five seats in Gorey last time - has been reduced in size, while New Ross, where Fianna Fail holds sway, was untouched.

In the new four-seat Gorey, where Mr d'Arcy himself is standing, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael will settle for an equal share of the spoils. New Ross is dominated by Fianna Fail. Until 1991 the party constantly took four out of five seats, but an excellent vote-management strategy saw Fine Gael take a second seat last time out.

The Green Party's two candidates, Mr Danny Forde and Ms Maureen Foister, opened their campaign standing in a landfill site in Killurin. Like the independent candidate, Mr John Moore, in New Ross, they hope to capitalise on environmental controversies like the possible siting of a waste incinerator at the Great Island power station in Campile.