Fianna Fáil happy to be in Mayo to congratulate winners

Batt O'Keeffe was beaming. The coincidence of the Taoiseach and most Fianna Fáil TDs being in Westport the morning the Mayo town won the National Tidy Towns award, was clearly joyous.

Yes, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern had known. "I told him at the match yesterday," Batt beamed again as he picked up a glass of champagne and posed for photographs with the winning committee.

"Wasn't it ironic?" he asked as he stepped from the cameras . "A coincidence" the Department of the Environment's press adviser said flatly as Batt stepped away for the photographers again.

"What did the Taoiseach say when you told him Westport had won?" we asked when he re-emerged.

"He said 'Isn't that extraordinary'," beamed Batt, whose next port of call was, well, Westport.

Also determined to get back to Westport with speed was Elsie Higgins, chairwoman of Westport's twice-winning bid for Tidy Towns glory.

"I was shaking, my whole body was shaking. I knew when we won the best large town category. We wouldn't have won the overall competition without that. It all went so fast."

Elsie, who described herself as "soaking in champagne", said the celebrations would take place in Westport and the committee would not be waiting around in Dublin as up to 100 volunteers who take part in the Sunday morning clean-ups and adopt-a-road-challenges would want to be involved.

But more than locals were already involved. "Bertie and Dick are already down outside the local SuperValu shop in Westport congratulating people," said Caroline Moody who represented the supermarket chain, sponsors of the competition.

Wherever he was, Dick Roche was not in Dublin Castle yesterday, a feature which gave the Wicklow's Aughrim Tidy Towns Committee some indication that they hadn't won. "If we had won, Dick Roche would have been there, Fianna Fáil or no Fianna Fáil," Bernard Keating, chairman of Aughrim Tidy Towns Committee, joked. In fact Aughrim lost out to Westport by one point.

Still, he said Aughrim had received a national award in the best small village category for their score of 294 points, "and out of 300 points that is not bad. We will be back next year, after 20 years we are not going to give up now".