AS THE Government tries to deal with the complexities of the water charges issue, and defuse an electoral time bomb in the process, the last thing it needs is another rural dispute.

But it has only itself to blame if the long running controversy over TV deflector systems boils over. In the 1992 election, an independent candidate, standing on this issue in Cork South Central, polled a respectable 39 first preferences.

Liam Hurley stayed in the contest just long enough to unseat a sitting Fianna Fail TD, John Dennehy.

The stakes this time will be higher and the mistrust of community groups greater. Action promised by Mr John Bruton in the 1992 campaign has come to naught and the deflector groups will not let him forget it.

A candidate had already been chosen to stand in Donegal South West, although he has subsequently withdrawn because of ill health. Campaigners there will shortly select - another candidate.

The new five seater constituency bin Mayo promises to be the scene of one of the toughest contests in the 1997 election.

Like the water charges issue, it is here a television candidate could have the most impact.

In the by election which followed Padraig Flynn's elevation to Brussels, his daughter, Beverly Cooper Flynn, failed to secure her father's seat in Mayo West.

Internecine rivalry within Fianna Fail was the major factor, but local pundits do not underestimate the part played by Paddy McGuinness, who stood on the Castlebar RTC issue.

He garnered 6,275 first preference votes, denying Ms Cooper Flynn the seat which eventually went to the Fine Gael auctioneer in Westport, Michael Ring.

It was a sensational victory for Fine Gael in a Fianna Fail strong hold, and the lesson the pundits - have drawn from it is that a single issue candidate, running on a ticket which has strong backing in the community, can have a decisive impact on the result.

Both the water charges and the TV deflector issue fit that bill, and with six sitting TDs chasing five seats in the redrawn Mayo constituency, the battle there promises to be exceptional.

These political considerations will inform, or perhaps distort, the way the Government deals with the complicated technical and legal arguments that surround the deflector issue.

The key document here is a report drawn up by a troika of European Broadcasting Union experts on a visit to Cork last year.

The visit followed a High Court decision in November 1995 which gave a Carrigaline community group the right to apply for a licence to rebroadcast television signals via the deflector system.

Mr Justice Keane found that in refusing to examine the group's case or a licence, the Minister for Communications had failed to act fairly and judicially.

It was one of the longest judgments given in the High Court, running to 200 pages. The hearing took 31 days.

The community group submitted that the Minister had adopted a policy of granting exclusive licences to MMDS operators only, and that this policy excluded its application.

FOR the Minister, it was submitted that he had considered the group's application with great care and instructed the Department to examine every way of resolving tube problem.

More than two years later, the Department is still examining ways of resolving the problem.

It is one which will provide the current Minister, Mr Dukes, with the first real test of his formidable analytical skills.

The deflector operators say they provide a low cost way of rebroadcasting BBC and ITV signals to people in rural areas who otherwise would have to pay much more. Health fears about the impact of microwave transmissions are also advanced as reasons to support the deflectors, which rebroadcast UHF signals.

The cable companies, which were granted an effective monopoly in the late 1980s by the former Fianna Fail Minister for Communications, Ray Burke, say the deflectors are only cheap because they do not pay copyright or other fees.

According to Mr Ray Doyle from the Cablelink Communications Association of Ireland, the operators are making thousands of pounds each year from subscribers, because their operating costs are practically nil.

They do not pay programme royalties or other charges, and yet an estimated 150,000 people pay an average of £30 per year for the service.

That's quite a lot of money out there," he says.

Why charge people £30? Why charge anything at all?"

Part of the reason the issue is hotting up now - apart from the obvious electoral one - is a suspicion among the deflector operators that the cable companies are preparing the ground for a massive compensation claim, should the Government cave in and license the deflectors.

Mr Doyle says the cable companies "would have no option" but to seek compensation if that happened. He says that 10 years down the road the companies are frustrated and angry that their huge investments have so far failed to bear fruit.

But two other issues - deregulation and the coming digital revolution - are lurking in the wings. The implications for the MMDS systems and the deflectors have yet to be fully worked out.

But it seems likely that the profits the holders of MMDS franchises hoped for 10 years ago will not now accrue to them.