THE day began badly for Mr Dan Boyle, of the Green Party, in Cork. He entered his Douglas Street office in the early morning and discovered someone had thrown a brick through his window and removed his poster.
It was nota dirty tricks thing, he decided, more likely a disaffected anti politics person on his or her way home who wished to make a comment.
But the canvass had to go on. Mr Boyle is knocking on doors from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day and believes he has a sporting chance of breaking through on this occasion.
In a three way battle for the fifth seat in Cork South Central, he expects he will be fighting it out with Labour's Mr Toddy O'Sullivan and Ms Deirdre Clune, of Fine Gael, the daughter of former Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Peter Barry.
This is a vital election for the Green Party. If it wants to make a difference, it must increase its representation in the Dail.
To do that, Mr Boyle - the most likely contender - must take a seat. The way he figures it, this is the golden opportunity and one which he intends to exploit.
Mr Boyle has fought no less than six elections at 34 years of age, including local elections, two general elections, a European election and a Seanad election.
His campaign will cost almost £9,000, of which the party will contribute only £5,000. So there has been serious fundraising in the midst of knocking on doors.
But that is less important to Mr Boyle than the voting figures. In the Cork South Central constituency by election of November 1994, he took 16 per cent or 7,000 votes. That made people sit up and take notice - so much so he claimed on the canvass that the other candidates were trying to talk down his chances.
This time, he reckons that if he comes in with 5,000 first preference votes or more, he will be a serious contender for the final seat.
Transfers, then, he argues, will come from the Independents who will not wish to support the main parties.
Canvassing in Turner's Cross yesterday, Mr Boyle, together with his father, Joe, found that rapping on doors early in the day was not too productive.
In one area, most people were out. A settled part of the town with a well established community, it could be that it was pension day, Mr Boyle said.
Still, the local boy was doing well with those who did answer the doors and he received a good response. There were questions about green areas for youngsters and about other facilities in the inner city area. And he offered everyone an opportunity to contact his office or to call around to his home in the locality.
According to Mr Boyle, the campaign has left him more mentally than physically exhausted. But he said he would stick with it, given that for him this was the big one.
In every election he had fought he had increased his vote and this time there was no reason to believe that he would not make the major breakthrough, he added.