Byelection: Water an issue, says Sinn Féin

“I’m not really sure where he’s canvassing, but he’s certainly not canvassing in Carlow-Kilkenny if that’s the response. Water is definitely coming up, and it’s crazy for him to say it isn’t,” said Sinn Féin candidate Kathleen Funchion yesterday.

She was keen to tell a different story than that of her Fine Gael counterpart David Fitzgerald as she canvassed elsewhere in the constituency.

Speaking in Cleeres pub after an afternoon canvass of the working class Parkmore Terrace in Gowran, east Kilkenny, was cut short by what a handler described grimly as “Tipperary rain”, the party’s first local representative since the foundation of the State, says Phil Hogan, Irish Water and austerity — not recovery — make up the majority of the opinions she hears about.