Ghosts of yesteryear still stalking the corridors of Co Offaly

Five years after the crash, ex-taoiseach Brian Cowen has been vindicated and Fianna Fáil is winning back voter trust, his TD brother Barry tells political reporter Fiachra Ó Cionnaith

A week out from the election is not when a party, in the throes of recovery, wants or even needs an old political ghost to reappear.

However, in one Co Offaly household the spectres of the past are never far from the mind. Brian Cowen, the ex-taoiseach poster boy of the crash, is back on the canvass prowl, for family and for party.