QUICK TAKE

Seats: 4
Candidates: 13
Population: 106,211
ommunity includes Granard, Longford, Mullingar, Kilbeggan, Moate and Athlone 

CANDIDATES

James Bannon FG     
Peter Burke FG
Colm Callanan CSP    
Donie Cassidy FF    
Seamus Cunningham IND
Betty Doran GP     
Paul Hogan SF    
Peter Kelly FF     
Nicky McFadden FG    
Noel O'Gara IND
Mary O'Rourke FF    
Willie Penrose LAB    
Mae Sexton PD 

SNAPSHOT

There is a real possibility that after the election three of the current deputies will not be in the next Dáil. Paul McGrath of Fine Gael is retiring, and both Donie Cassidy and Mae Sexton have mountains to climb if they are to be re-elected.

Geography and county loyalties will play crucial parts in deciding who the winners and losers will be. Mary O'Rourke was the surprise casualty in Westmeath in 2002. Athlone was left without a local deputy.

The expectation is that this will be righted in the coming election with the battle for the 'Athlone seat' between the former minister, Mary O'Rourke, and Fine Gael's Nicky McFadden.

Donie Cassidy has to be the unluckiest of the Westmeath-based candidates. A large slice of his Castlepollard stronghold now moves to the new Meath West constituency, and along with it go, according to Cassidy, some 2,000 voters who normally would vote for him.

At the Longford end of the constituency Peter Kelly, who inherited the old Albert Reynolds seat, is the only Fianna Fáil candidate from the county and must be odds on to be returned.

Mae Sexton of the Progressive Democrats, also Longford-based, will very likely be a victim of the recent constituency carve-up. She was elected in 2002 in Longford-Roscommon courtesy of a large slice of good fortune.

Transfers from the independent 'Roscommon Hospital' candidate Una Quinn and Fine Gael's Louis Belton helped edge Sexton ahead of Dr Greg Kelly of Fianna Fáil to win a seat that few predicted.

Senator James Bannon of Fine Gael is strategically very well placed. He lives in Co Longford, but is right beside the Westmeath border. Willie Penrose was a poll-topper here last time with more than a quota. It would be one of the upsets of the election, nationally, if he did not make it.

PREDICTIONS

Longford will return at least one deputy and Peter Kelly must be the favourite by a mile. McFadden and Bannon will most probably battle it out for the one guaranteed Fine Gael seat. The party could win two, but that would be a major surprise. Penrose will very likely top the poll once again.

Finally we could be left with a do or die battle for a second Fianna Fáil seat between O'Rourke and Cassidy. Local polls, speculation and demography would seem to favour O'Rourke.

If Cassidy is to win the seat he has to pray that O'Rourke is behind her fellow Athlone woman Nicky McFadden at the first count and that he benefits most from the transfers of other non-Athlone based candidates.

2 FF, 1 Lab and 1 FG. (PD loss due to constituency change).

- Rachael English and Nick Coffey from RTÉ's The Election Book

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