Banotti dispenses with bridges and songs but promises voters a safe pair of hands

"She won't sing songs and she won't build bridges," Tania Banotti tells a voter in Longford town, making the most extravagant election promise of the day on behalf of her mother. The candidate, meanwhile, tells another woman she offers "a safe pair of hands" for the Presidency, so maybe she won't be averse to a bit of construction work after all.

We're in the heart of Albert's kingdom. Every second building seems to be owned or have been opened by the former Taoiseach. His name is still on everyone's lips.

Ms Banotti tells local Fine Gael councillors that the election will be decided in small towns like their own. Pictures of Michael Collins hang on the walls of party offices so the family connection will stand her well here.

"I'm hoping for great things from Longford. Councillors are the `shock troops' of this election," she says. More like troops in shock - the assembled collection of elderly men in dark suits seems a little put out by the way this contest is shaping up.

One asks what to tell voters about their number twos.

Another asks: "What about the posters?" What kind of election is this anyway, with no posters, no leaflets so far, no drains to be fixed (and no man in the race until the last minute)?

The mood improves on the street, where one councillor remarks: "She's fairly good on the feet." Even after six hours in the mud at the ploughing championships the previous day, Ms Banotti's enthusiasm is undimmed as she rushes forward to build bridges, however fleeting, with passing voters.

Another councillor tells me: "I never thought she was so glamorous. The telly doesn't do justice to her." But he's not a man for getting carried away: "Pity she's not known round here."

The main street is a Reynolds-free zone as Ms Banotti proceeds with her canvass. Tania Banotti, described by her mother as her secret weapon, furrows ahead, preparing the way like a veteran vote-getter.

If the locals are angry with the treatment of Albert, they weren't telling the Fine Gael candidate yesterday. Only one woman in the women's information centre says she is disgusted with Fianna Fail, and plans to switch to Ms Banotti.

Drawing on her experience as an MEP, she tells the women they would be better off scrubbing floors to raise money than seeking small grants promptly from the EU. A woman gives her a leaflet advertising her B&B and Ms Banotti tells her she regularly places Irish tourist information on display in the travel shop of the European Parliament.

Asked about a potential voting pact with Adi Roche, she replies that her aim is to maximise her first-preference votes and to draw cross-party support. But it's clear that a deal will be hammered out and unveiled with due fanfare in the final weeks of the campaign.

Earlier, in Derrane, Co Roscommon, she empathised with the women training at a resource centre for the disabled. "I spent three months on crutches when I tripped on the day Mary Robinson was elected. I was never conscious of the difficulties of having a disability before."

Ms Banotti also paid a visit to the grave of the first President, Douglas Hyde. It was regrettable that "unkind and unjust" things had been said to denigrate previous Presidents, she told a gathering of about 100 Fine Gael supporters in Frenchpark, Co Roscommon.

Hyde, she noted, became President in spite of having just three weeks of formal education. The deduction being that you don't need to be a genius, or even a law professor, to hold the post.