Inside politics:With only about 12 Dáil sitting days left until the general election a great deal of political activity has shifted out of Leinster House to the constituencies. The opinion polls, both public and private, are giving conflicting signals and all the parties are focusing their energies on the ground, where the vital seats will be won or lost, writes Stephen Collins
The Dáil will sit as normal next week but will go into recess the following week for the St Patrick's Day holiday. This is a traditional week-long break from formal business to allow the Taoiseach and his Ministers to travel to the four corners of the globe. After it there will be just three more weeks until the Easter break and nobody is taking bets on whether the 29th Dáil will come back.
The fact that the business of the House has been structured to ensure that the key items of legislation will have passed all stages before Easter has only confirmed the view that if it returns at all after its two-week holiday, it will only be for a day or two.
In any case, full-scale campaigning has already started as far as the Taoiseach is concerned. He was off electioneering in Kerry on Thursday when the latest loophole in the laws relating to child protection was revealed by Labour leader Pat Rabbitte during exchanges with Minister for Justice Michael McDowell.
While Mr McDowell sought to minimise the importance of the issue, the fact that Dáil business has been cleared on Tuesday night to allow him to rush emergency legislation through the House shows that the Labour leader did score a hit. After his successful party conference, Mr Rabbitte appears to be on a bit of a roll at a critical time.
The Taoiseach took the fight to Cork yesterday to try and shore up a potential weak spot for Fianna Fáil. Private polls have shown that at least three Fianna Fáil seats could be lost in Co Cork and Mr Ahern's sweep through the county, culminating in a big dinner in the city last night, was designed to counter the threat. The barracking the Taoiseach got over the Cork airport issue was a demonstration of just how volatile politics can be and how events can interfere with the best-laid plans.
Fianna Fáil is reasonably confident about the rest of Munster and rural Leinster but there are also potential problems in Connacht, the home province of Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, where more Government seats are under threat. The big imponderable is Dublin and that is where the election will be won or lost. Fianna Fáil will be under pressure from all sides, with Fine Gael, Labour, the Greens and Sinn Féin all hoping for gains. As against that, the Taoiseach's popularity is a huge asset across the country but it should count for even more in his own back yard.
Mr Kenny went to Limerick, where his party simply has to gain at least one seat in one of the two county constituencies if it is to have any chance of getting into government. He addressed a big rally in the city as part of a determined push to win a second seat in Limerick East, with the obvious target being Tim O'Malley of the Progressive Democrats.
The decision of Donegal South West TD Dinny McGinley to change his mind about retiring is a shot in the arm for Fine Gael. The party's seat is certainly under threat from Pearse Doherty of Sinn Féin but without McGinley on the ticket there was simply no chance of retaining it. With him back in the fray there is at least a reasonable prospect of holding on.
PD leader Mr McDowell stayed closer to home, going only as far as Dún Laoghaire to meet his British opposite number John Reid yesterday. The defence of the seat held by Fiona O'Malley was an equally important part of the equation for the Tánaiste and he campaigned with her in the constituency. The paradox facing the PDs is that they could hold on to the 4 per cent share of the vote obtained in 2002 and still lose more than half their seats.
They have to concentrate support in vital constituencies and Dún Laoghaire is one of them.
All the parties face the same challenge of trying to get the attention of an electorate which, despite all the early electioneering, is still not really switched on to politics and probably won't be until the election is formally called.
An illustration of the indifference of a large swathe of the public to politics was provided in a video made to promote a valuable information booklet on political institutions written and published by Dublin MEP Gay Mitchell.
In the video, a handful of voters, chosen at random, were asked questions to test their knowledge of politics. There were two striking things about the responses. One was how little most knew about politics and the other was that of all the politicians, past and present, Mr Ahern was easily the best known. Asked to name all the holders of the office of taoiseach, people struggled to name anybody, apart from Mr Ahern. "What was the name of that fellow with the Charvet shirts?" asked one woman, while another said she could name only two taoisigh, Bertie Ahern and John Major!
The floating vote is made up of people with precisely that limited knowledge of politics and it is where Mr Ahern's constant campaigning should prove invaluable to Fianna Fáil. He is by far the best-known politician in the country and remains his party's prize asset. The challenge for the Opposition is to find issues to fight on which can distract from Mr Ahern's popularity.