They don’t even know at this stage what their functions will be exactly, if elected to the Fermoy Electoral Area’s first Municipal District (the local authority replacing the local area committees and town councils), but that’s not dampening the enthusiasm of candidates in the local elections in May.

The declared candidates have already been seen in the past couple of months out and about at various different functions in communities. Most are already well known as they are either sitting councillors or community activists but knowing the value of having the face being seen, they have been spotted at events further afield in the past weeks as they seek to mix it with the electorate outside their home bases.

Now, with Christmas out of the way, they’re gearing up. Local elections are always a great barometer of public feeling, and it’ll be interesting to see what way the electorate will react when given its first public opportunity to show their feelings about recent events such as exiting the bailout, the imposition of the Local Property Tax and the Irish Water debacle. No one has forgotten the hammering Fianna Fail took in the 2009 local elections for mishandling the economy.

By far the most organised candidate to date is Labour’s Noel McCarthy who, we hear, has secured himself a premises right in the heart of Fermoy which he plans to use as his campaign headquarters and local constituency office. The office is in Pearse Square, where Santa’s Grotto was over Christmas and The Avondhu understands he plans to open it within the next couple of weeks. We hear he is also planning to get a head start on canvassing. A local branch meeting is being held next Monday night to lay their plans.

Sitting councillors like Cllr McCarthy, Fianna Fail’s Frank O’Flynn and Kevin O’Keeffe have the advantage of public recognition and profile through their positions on the Fermoy Electoral Area Committee of the county council and the full council. It’s fair to say though that all of the declared new candidates, Ian Doyle from Charleville for Fianna Fail, Fine Gael’s Aileen Browne (also from Charleville), Kay Dawson from Mitchelstown and Philly Leahy from Ballyhooly  also have profile in their respective areas. Kay Dawson said this week she is drawing up plans for canvassing and plans to start soon.

Sinn Fein have yet to choose a candidate for the Fermoy Electoral area. In a statement this week, the party’s area organiser Seamus Coleman, said that because of the vast region covered in the newly formed Local Electoral Area, they are still assessing their election strategy.

“There are a number of options available to us and while we will be a little behind other parties in the area with regard to candidate selection, we are still confident that whatever strategy we adopt we will be in a very strong position with regards to challenging to have a Sinn Fein representative in this area,” he told The Avondhu.

In an early shot over the bows of the declared candidates he said: “The field is small at the moment with only seven declared, all coming from the ‘parties of austerity’, so we will be offering the electorate of the area a real alternative.”

There’s rumblings in anti-EirGrid pylon circles that they may run candidates in the local elections and they’re angry enough at the Government’s intransigence on the matter to do it. The possibility of them even running a European election candidate can’t be ruled out though the cost of an election campaign for an independent candidate, without benefit of financial backing from a party, is substantial.

There’s no doubt but that it’ll be a big and contentious issue in both elections for Government party candidates.

Elsewhere in the county in the past week, Labour lost another member of the party in the form of veteran councillor Jerry Mullally, a former Mayor of Mallow. He cited the introduction of the property tax and water charges as reasons for his dissatisfaction with the party and charged it with ‘leading people astray’. He plans to continue as an independent. His resignation came within 24 hours of Labour’s South Dublin Mayor, Dermot Looney also announcing his resignation.

This week Labour Minister Sean Sherlock wished Jerry well, saying: “He and his family have given sterling service to Labour and to the people of Mallow and north Cork.”

Cllr Noel McCarthy said he was sorry to see the loss of someone of such calibre. “He was a great party man. It was a tough decision to make. I wish him well,” he said.  He hoped Cllr Mullally might see his way to returning to the party at some stage in the future. Cllr McCarthy, who has been vocal hiimself in criticising his party over budget cuts in the past, said he’d come to the view that it was better to stay in the party and try to change it from within, than to go outside it.