It is said that all politics is local, so it should be no surprise that the expected elevation of the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, to Foreign Affairs is going down badly in the midlands.
Mr Cowen is one of three Fianna Fail TDs in the five-seat constituency of Laois/Offaly.
In a pub in his native Clara on Tuesday, they were concerned about his expected move to Foreign Affairs. Some of the people in the bar make their living from the local bogs and power stations; they were worried that his new job would literally take power from them.
"The man was available all the time and he could be talked to any weekend or on a Monday," said one. "We knew where to get him and that has been very important in keeping what is left of Ferbane station open.
"When he gets the new job he will just not be around and we will not have the same access at all. We wish him well but from our point of view, its a disaster." Journalists in Tullamore, where the Minister lives with his wife and family, were getting the same reactions.
The Minister is very popular in his home town. Even the nurses in the Tullamore Hospital, who have just recovered financially from their dispute with the Department of Health, have a grudging respect for the Minister.
Tullamore has done particularly well out of his tenure as Minister for Health, as he secured the future of the hospital there.
Only last month, Mr Cowen officially opened a new Command and Control, Educational and Resource centre, which incorporates the Medical Education Centre and the Midland Regional School of Nursing.
All these developments have been landmarks for the local community and create local employment. They fear an end to all of this.