Constituency profile: Dublin Bay North

Showers are blowing in from the estuary and the wind-chill factor has the brass monkeys scurrying for cover. It’s early afternoon in the village of Baldoyle, north Dublin, and it is to here that Deirdre Heney is coming to tie down a few number ones.

Heney is one of two Fianna Fáil candidates in the new sprawling constituency of Dublin Bay North. Like others around the country who have found themselves ploughing fresh fields under the redrawn constituencies, Heney is a newbie round these parts. She is a councillor of 17 years’ standing, but Baldoyle isn’t even in the same local authority — Dublin City — where she serves.

Nobody said it would be easy, but the task at hand is even more daunting under the prevailing conditions.