MICHAEL LOWRY may not have stewarded his tax affairs but the dogs in the North Tipperary streets know that his management of the Fine Gael organisation in the constituency is powerful.
A liability to the Fine Gael family, he has now been cut loose but his presence and influence on the Fine Gael vote will linger like a ghost seeking rest.
Michael Lowry, they say, does not get mad but he does get even. Fighting for his political life, it is therefore assumed he is about to throw down the gauntlet to his erstwhile party and demonstrate that it is Michael Lowry and not Fine Gael that owns one of the three North Tipperary Dail seats.
There is little doubt in political circles in the county that he will achieve this. "He will stand as an Independent or Independent Fine Gael and he will top the poll", said one Fianna Fail member in the county.
Had he not been effectively forced to resign from Fine Gael - having failed as yet to resolve outstanding tax matters - he would have sought and won the party's nomination. He would also have taken the seat, irrespective of the severe embarrassment caused to Fine Gael by revelations almost four months ago that Ben Dunne had paid for an expensive extension to his Holy Cross home.
Today, at the nadir of his political career, strong local public sympathy fans his hopes for survival. That, combined with warm and recent memories of the favours he won for Tipperary as minister for transport, energy and communications, is expected to be enough to again secure him a Dail place at Fine Gael's expense.
His resignation announcement on Thursday night threw the political balance of his constituency into turmoil. Fine Gael has always been able to depend on North Tipperary to deliver a seat but the leadership now realises it does not have a candidate of sufficient profile or experience to challenge Michael Lowry.
On the other hand, he will deploy his loyalists in the local party and call on old favours in an extreme effort to save his political life.
"We are resigned to the fact that we will lose the seat. It's gone. But what choice did we have?", said one Fine Gael member yesterday. "To save North Tipp would cost us nationally."
Fianna Fail is tipped locally to take the other two seats, with the outgoing TD, Michael Smith - who topped the poll in 1992 - and Senator Michael O'Kennedy. But both these candidates come from the extreme north of the county while Lowry's stomping ground is further south in Thurles, closer to the heart of the constituency.
He has a great swathe of territory to himself on his own doorstep, which Michael Smith and Michael O'Kennedy have to travel perhaps 50 miles to traverse (the constituency straddles a huge area with an electorate of well over 40,000).
Luckily too for Michael Lowry the new Labour candidate, Kathleen O'Meara, who won the nomination after Deputy John Ryan stepped down, also comes from the county's northern extremities.
A native of Roscrea, she has recently gone back to live in the constituency after serving with the Minister of State at the Department of the Tanaiste, Ms Eithne Fitzgerald.
Meanwhile, the Progressive Democrats' candidate, Dr Joe Hennessy, is also from the northern neck of the woods and is relatively unknown further south in the constituency.
As Fine Gael mounts a challenge, in all likelihood the candidates fighting Michael Lowry for the party vote will also come from Roscrea (Cllr Denis Ryan), and Nenagh (Cllr Tom Ryan).
With the changes in the constituency boundaries in 1995, South Tipperary was transformed from a four-seater to a three-seat constituency. The area that fell to North Tipp is seen as Michael Lowry's territory.
Another Fianna Fail member says: "It's all at Lowry's back. The other candidates are almost strangers there. From a geographic point of view, he is impregnable."
As the first Fine Gael minister in North Tipperary since Dan Morrissey held the Industry and Commerce portfolio in 1948, Michael Lowry has brought enough State-backed development to the constituency to believe his vote is now set in bedrock. Even Fianna Fail members claim he could pick up transfers as an Independent from their voters. His GAA connections will not harm him either.
A £4.5 million drainage scheme in a large catchment area from Newport to Cappamore is also quoted locally as a reason for pulling in a large farmer vote, while the spin-off from a new third-level institute planned for Thurles should draw support in the towns.
Meanwhile, the general election has been billed as Fianna Fail's big opportunity to return two candidates. John Ryan held sway for Labour through a large personal vote, and while Ms O'Meara is expected to poll well, it is generally anticipated that Senator O'Kennedy, who lost his seat in 1992, will use the opening to push back into the Dail.
The PD candidate, Dr Hennessy, is unlikely to make a significant electoral impression on his first outing.
Even the most optimistic Fine Gael supporters now concede that North Tipperary is lost to them - for the time being.