"THERE'S a little thing called four votes," said the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, in answer to a question about the extent of his campaign in the north Kerry constituency and the benefits he has secured for Tralee.
He was referring to the 1987 election when he took the third seat in the constituency by the narrowest of margins. That will not happen again.
Yesterday Mr Spring attended the Kingdom County Fair, where he met thousands of people from the urban and rural sides of north Kerry. Later on, as the campaign progresses, he will make house to house calls in all the small villages of the constituency as well as the Tralee housing estates.
The miracle would be if the Tanaiste ever fared as badly again as in the election of 1987. Since then, he has helped orchestrate a £100 million development programme for Tralee.
Everywhere you go, the evidence is that the Kerry capital is booming. There will be a new regional technical college; there are plans for a technology park; a £20 million apartment complex; two new hotels; there has been major urban renewal, and several heritage projects are under way as well as a new sewerage scheme.
The development programme involves European money, State grants and private enterprise. It is designed to prepare Tralee for the millennium. Against that background it is inconceivable that things could go wrong for Mr Spring.
He said yesterday talks were under way which could lead to Parametric Industries of Boston - the fastest growing software company in the world - locating its European headquarters in Tralee. If anyone wished to accuse him of favouritism, Mr Spring added, they could consider that he was elected to look after his constituency and that Tralee went through a particularly bad patch in the 1980s.
When his party launches its manifesto tomorrow it will contain a new anti crime package as well as taxation proposals. These, he added, would dovetail with Government policy. There was everything to play for in the campaign, and preferences, probably fourth, fifth and sixth preferences, would determine the destination of seats in the marginal constituencies.
Mr Spring said his own preference for an amalgamation of the Labour Party and Democratic Left was on record but the issue was not on the agenda on this occasion.
Labour, he continued, was for increased spending on education and accepted that there was a skills shortage in the Republic. A decade ago there were 10,000 jobs for 25,000 school leavers; now the situation had been dramatically reversed and there were great opportunities for young people.
Mr Spring mediated successfully in a dispute involving the chief executive of the Rose of Tralee Festival and the organisers. Now, he wants to see the festival getting a permanent home - possibly in the Mount Brandon Hotel conference centre. The tented dome which has housed the festival for decades had a future lifespan of no more than a couple of years, the Tanaiste predicted.