Ok folks, it’s showtime

IT’S JUST after seven o’clock on a dreary February morning and an old Georgian building overlooking a sleepy Merrion Square turns into a scene of organised election chaos.

Teams of strategists, volunteers, political advisers and backroom boys and girls — mostly young bright things in razor-sharp suits — are starting the day at Fianna Fáil election headquarters. “It’s like a big bus station,” says one top strategist.

They listen to the early morning news programmes, pore over the coverage in the morning newspapers and hold the first meeting to plan the day.