On the canvass/Seán Moran with Martin Cullen:One of the two most pilloried Cabinet Ministers is ready to take his message to the voters on the doorsteps.
Minister for Transport and TD for Waterford Martin Cullen descends on Ferrybank, the frontier district between Kilkenny and Waterford city. Across the main road from the church is a Marian shrine and the canvassers gather there for their briefing - a few encouraging words on a sunny May evening before they fan out to work the neighbourhood.
But the spiritual karma of the shrine is dissipated by a glance over at the churchyard. There beyond the group of intent canvassers and the evening traffic looms a plain grey tombstone. No dates, no inscription - just a name in capital letters: CULLEN - like Scrooge and the ghost of Christmas yet to come.
There comes a point where being a fashionable target for satire and national hilarity works in your favour back home. Cullen has long ago reached that stage and enhanced the process by being broadly acknowledged to have delivered in terms of the regeneration of the constituency.
The new port facilities have been relocated to Belview, four miles outside the city, and the old north quays are to be the site of a massive redevelopment. "It will stretch the town," says Cullen enthusiastically to one constituent. Moreover, new roads and airport expansion are in the pipeline.
"I've nothing to say," says one man, "except I hope we don't lose you. You've done a good job for Waterford." The Minister would feel that despite the bad press he hasn't done a bad job for the country. Major road projects are routinely completed ahead of schedule and 70 per cent of the national motorway network has been built or is under construction. Gorey will have its bypass by July, five months early, and work on Carlow's is already four months ahead of schedule.
Mention of the ceaseless brickbats - electronic voting machines, his life-size likeness being "fired" in a Fine Gael stunt, allegations that he has been gagged by head office - elicits the only interval in his jaunty, cheerful campaign demeanour: "Look, I know it's all part of it but you do get tired. I've been getting this sort of stuff for years."
But he snaps out of this bleak contemplation as another door opens and he introduces himself and looks for support. On the road he stops by a group of three lads with their own transport brief - peering under the bonnet of a car.
"Are you voting? Make sure you vote. Get into the habit of it and then you can kick me to bits if you want." He's a fourth-generation politician. Three of them have been lord mayor of Waterford.
His great-grandfather could have been but couldn't spare the time from his stevedore business. The family allegiance has been through old Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil, Independent Fianna Fáil, the PDs and Fianna Fáil again.
The current Cullen explains his PD phase as the result "of a split in Fianna Fáil", a drift he was happy to reconsider having established a good relationship with Bertie Ahern, then minister for labour, during the Waterford Glass strike in the late 1980s during the FF-PD coalition.
The area being swarmed by a large team of election workers has a few hundred homes, council houses and middle-class owner-occupied houses.
Waterford city is his home territory and he used to live near Ferrybank, so the generally positive response isn't too surprising.
"I can't square the national polls with the reaction on the doorsteps," he says. But he doesn't really have to.
This is seen as a predictable constituency, expected to return all four TDs - the Minister's colleague in Leinster House Ollie Wilkinson is from the county, as is Fine Gael TD John Deasy while Labour's Brian O'Shea is from Tramore, close to the city.
Sinn Féin is hopeful for Cllr David Cullinane, who polled well in the constituency during the 2004 European elections, but he was the only candidate from the southeast region, never mind Waterford.
"A lot of this is about local issues," Cullen says after making notes in a small notebook about an inquiry to do with council house maintenance. There is more of the same around the corner.
A retired man emerges and points to a lamp post; not a magic one like the Tánaiste's in Dublin but a malfunctioning one.
"That's been out for three days. Have you any pull with the ESB?" he asks before telling how he was going to ring the helpline, but suspected that a quicker, local option might be pursued.
"Ah yeah, I can short-circuit that," says the Minister with unintentional menace and a brisk flourish of the notebook.
The national picture hasn't, however, receded altogether. He is called up to one house where a man wants to see him. "I wanted to shake your hand," says the constituent, "after what that b*****d did to you - excuse my language. As a fellow Waterford man I felt offended and wanted to tell you that."
Pleased with this unintended consequence of his sacked cardboard effigy, Cullen says: "Yeah, that's funny. I'd always have had him as Workers' Party." Another man thanks him for his efforts on behalf of Waterford and the campaign for university status.
"Port [Dr Jim Port, a UK educational consultant appointed to evaluate Waterford IT's claims] came to see me out of courtesy and he's talked to a lot of people here and in the adjoining counties. He says the case in unanswerable," says the Minister.
At evening's end the canvass winds up and Cullen gets ready to drive his campaign van off towards the burgeoning city.