We are sitting in his campaign headquarters smack bang in the centre of the town and it's what you imagine the rooms in Bletchley Park, home to the Allies' codebreaking team during the second world war, looked like. The walls are covered with charts with lists of every street and housing estate in Donegal North East. In the corner, there is a fridge and kettle. The hum of activity is ever present.

There is no sign yet of Letterkenny's own version of the enigma but his activists are hugely entertaining and very hospitable. Tea, sandwiches and scones are quickly produced for the Sunday Tribune (well it is a long drive from the Big Smoke). They are perusing the local newspaper and its photographs of the Mayors' Ball, which they all attended. Although they are deadly serious about the election business in hand, it's quickly obvious from the banter that it will be a good night in the old town if and when 'the Doc' is re-elected next Friday.

On the fridge sit two Smirnoff bottles but they are filled not with vodka but with bog bean . . . a homoeopathic remedy given to McDaid by a constituent. Apparently, it's good for psoriasis and teenage acne (where was it when badly needed 20 years ago? ).

"It's also good for the sex life, " says one of the canvassers, mischief in her eye. They don't give it to McDaid though. "He's too goodlooking. We need something to keep the women away. The elderly woman love him, " one woman says. "All ages, " interjects another.

So, it seems, does pretty much everyone in Letterkenny if today's canvass is anything go by.

McDaid is covering an area near the hospital.

There are not too many candidates in the country that can boast his canvassing capacity. Every night six groups of eight hit the footpaths. This afternoon his team is all-female. They are dubbed "the bunny girls" by another male activist who has dropped by for a moment, although they quickly plead with the Sunday Tribune not to put that in the piece (sorry ladies, it was just too good not to use). McDaid does indeed look "handsome" and well-groomed, apart, that is, from a pair of shoes that are almost falling off him with a split at the back. McDaid is superstitious about elections . . . at every one he apparently starts canvassing at the same house as his first election . . .

and these are his "lucky shoes". He won't be dispensing with them until the end of the campaign when, his activists joke, they are going to auction them on eBay.

Whether it's the shoes or not, the reaction to McDaid at the doorsteps is overwhelming. The number of houses where he doesn't get a guarantee of a number one could literally be counted on one hand. "Hello there McDaid, " says one woman. "Definitely [you have my vote]. You always had anyway." Another constituent cuts him short as if telling him not to waste his time preaching to converts: "You know without asking." The only house where he fails to secure such a promise is one connected to the Niall Blaney camp. "You know the way we're fixed, " the woman says.

As we head up the steep hill at the north of the town, a van passes, emblazoned with the words 'McDaid Delivers' and pumping out Tina Turner's hit 'Simply the Best'. The same microphones are to be used by local nurses for their protest meeting a few days later. It says something about his popularity in the area that the nurses are happy to use McDaid's van . . . the TD's offer to provide an unmarked car is not taken up.

In many of the houses, occupants are patients at McDaid's GP practice . . . his team diplomatically withdraw when a medical matter comes up.

The banter is pure Donegal. One middle-aged couple take an age to answer the door but their highly plausible explanation that they were in the back garden and didn't hear the bell doesn't convince the canvassers. "What were you two up to that you didn't hear us knocking?" asks one teasing.

At another point, McDaid's stethoscope is produced from the back of the car and pressed against his chest for a listen while he is on the phone. McDaid, all mock exasperation, brushes it away. The activists decide against a further root through the back seat. "Maybe there'd be things in there you wouldn't want to see, " one says laughing.

Later in the canvass, a man pulls his car in to meet McDaid. He is effusive in his praise of the TD for securing a hospital bed for his young son.

"You're the only one we could rely on in Letterkenny. Others said they would do something, you did it."

His Dublin accent is noted by the canvassers.

"We might just let you win the All Ireland for that, " one jokes. Another constituent invites McDaid and his team to view an extraordinary traditional Irish cottage that they have recreated in the back garden. It's amazingly authentic . . . like stepping back a hundred years. "Many's a party we had here, " she tells McDaid. "You'll hardly give it to the under 21s, " the TD replies, tongue firmly in cheek.

At the next house, a woman proclaims her loyalty to McDaid but informs him that she will be away in Lourdes on 24 May. He is well aware of the trip. Six hundred constituents from his heartland of Raphoe (including McDaid's sister) will be gone on the pilgrimage which was organized long before the election was called. The absence of a postal vote for those who are genuinely out of the country on holidays is understandably a bone of contention for McDaid.

"That has to be changed, " he says.

Moments later, the whole election is put into context when the canvass is interrupted by McDaid's partner in the GP practice with a message that the TD is needed urgently. He has been called to the house where, tragically, the bodies of a young woman and her daughter have been found.

An hour or two on, back at campaign HQ, McDaid looks genuinely shattered by what he has witnessed. But after composing himself for a time, he sits down to talk further. As ever with McDaid, ask him a straight question and he gives a straight answer.

He is critical of elements of the Fianna Fail campaign and of Michael McDowell's "flip-flopping" of two weekends ago (see panel) but not in any headline-seeking way, merely calling it as he sees it. And he believes that Fianna Fail will be back in government come 14 June. "Being a gambling person I would have a few bob on [a coalition with] the Labour party".

Having reversed his decision to retire, McDaid is non-committal about how many more elections he will contest, other than saying he has no desire to be father of the Dail and that he will not leave until he is sure Fianna Fail will hold its two seats in the constituency.

The father of the Dail may not be for him but last year he became a father for the second time around. He says that he is more mature now than in what he describes as his wilder earlier days.

"I took a long time to mature, but I certainly enjoyed the time that I spent maturing." You don't doubt him for a second.

McDAID ON. . . .

His belief that Bertie Ahern's ardfheis speech was a mistake: "I'm not blaming anybody but it's my personal opinion that once we made that ardfheis speech [contaning many promises] we were playing catch-up from there on in. We were literally in the pool with the rest of the fish and we were swimming around with everybody else and we confused the electorate."

Election promises: "There's far too much out now there at the minute. And we [FF] used to focus in previous elections on four or five specific issues and I think we're a little bit all over the shop right now."

Stamp duty: "Once Michael McDowell put his foot into it with the stamp duty issue that threw everything. . . I don't think it was the right strategy [for FF to abolish stamp duty for first-time buyers]. I think [we should have] remained "rm and said, 'If it's not broken, what's the problem? What's the reason for
fixing it?' . . . With the stamp duty issue, we became one of all the others."

The possibility of a Rainbow victory: "I honestly believe a government without FF will not last any longer than three years."

Ahern: "I've known the man for many years and I would say the least interest that Bertie Ahern has is in anything is to do with monetary matters. . . He has an addiction to politics and he has an addiction to being popular. He has nothing to do with anything untoward, like in a monetary sense, at all. I do have every con"dence that all this will pass over. It's unfortunate that it's coming out now."

Whether Ahern should have made his statement earlier: "You see, I'm not fully au fait with that. Bertie Ahern, as he always did, he would always call in his closest ministers. He would discuss all that with them. And we have very, very good advisers in there, so I mean this is the way that they obviously felt they could deal with that. But unfortunately, as I said, it didn't work out. We've gone 10 or 12 days into an election now and Plan A hasn't worked out.

Therefore what he did last Sunday was correct. The question is should he have done it earlier. The answer obviously, with hindsight, is yes. But at the same time, I just feel no matter where he goes now during this election campaign, that's going to be the issue that's going to be focused on, on Bertie rather than the election. That's why Brian Cowen has been put out front. . . We're not getting it on the doorsteps. . . I do think it's a media-led type of thing and I think it'll pass over and I honestly believe that we will be in government again."

Whether his demotion from ministerial office still rankles: "Sometimes when I think back on the way that it was done, you would do that. But you're best to forget these things and get on with it."

DONEGAL NORTH EAST (3 seats)
CANDIDATES

FF: Niall Blaney TD, Cecilia Keaveney TD, James McDaid TD

FG: Joe McHugh Labour: Siobhan McLaughlin Green: Frank Gallagher SF: Padraig Mac Lochlainn

CS: Mary Doherty Ind: Jimmy Harte, Ian McGarvey, Arthur McGuinness

2002 GENERAL ELECTION
1st Pref Share
Elected James McDaid (FF) 9,614 26.45% 1st count Cecilia Keaveney (FF) 8,340 22.95% 2nd count Niall Blaney (IndFF) 6,124 16.85% 3rd count Sean Maloney (FG) 3,723 10.24% Bernard McGuinness (FG) 3,914 10.77% Padraig Mac Lochlainn(SF) 3,611 9.93% Jackie McNair (Lab) 1,021 2.81% Spoilt votes: 549 (1.49%) Total valid poll: 36,347 (62.44%)