Councillors running in the upcoming local elections are putting flyers through letterboxes marked “sorry I missed you” — but aren’t actually calling to the door. The notes are handwritten in biro, but the doorbell is left unrung and nobody knocks. This happened to me yesterday while I and two other people were in the house (there were two cars outside), and similar stories have been discussed on local radio. I got one from Councillor Tim Lombard of Fine Gael, although I categorically stress that I don’t know which parties the other runaways belong to. Regardless, it’s not very good form from a man whose slogan is “keeping in touch”.

I can understand a Fianna Fáil candidate doing this — that party is likely to suffer greatly in the elections due to economic mismanagement and the emergency budget — but surely Fine Gael would want to do its utmost to capitalise on this. Do they not want to answer questions? Do they want to avoid being caught up in an “all politicians are shits” rant at the doorstep? Or are they not handing out their own flyers and writing the little notes as a way to hide this? I couldn’t see who dropped the leaflet through, just a flicker of shadow at the door.

Has this happened to you? What do you think of it?

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