The details of councillors’ expenses were all over the news last week. I’ve been getting it in the neck and between the eyes ever since.

When it comes to expenses and allowances, I’m not the worst of them. The figures published show I average around €26,000 odd per year, but some of my colleagues did the dog on it altogether.

Percy Pipplemoth Davis nearly made it to the €100,000 mark thanks to his love affair with conferences. A fact-finding mission to Greenland to explore the melting ice caps put the tin hat on it for him.

Nevertheless, the way people are reacting to my little €26,000 you’d think I was getting €250,000 a year. One woman told me I should be getting 26,000 kicks up the arse on an annual basis and not €26,000.

It’s never easy being a public representative, but any mention in the papers of our salaries and expenses and we get no end of dog’s abuse. You can’t even answer the call of nature in peace without being attacked. To be accosted by a constituent in the loo when you are just about to begin proceedings is the worst of all, there is nothing more certain to give you stage fright than a complete stranger engaging you in conversation just as you are about to relieve yourself. I was in such a position in a well-known hostelry in Clonmel last week and I had just untackled myself when a fella at the next receptacle stared at me as I prepared to perform.

“You’re Maurice Hickey.”

“I am,” says I

“You’re a county councillor.”

“Right again,” says I.

“How does a fella go about getting a soft job like that?” he asked

“By spendin’ months gatherin’ up a few thousand votes, by goin’ to hundreds of meetings, thousands of funerals and bein’ available to the public even when you’re performin’ the most private of bodily functions,” says I

“Is that all?” says he, “I might have a go at it so.”

He washed his hands and left, delighted with himself, while I stood there unable to get on with the job I came in to do.

To be perfectly honest, I found this campaign harder than all the other election campaigns I ever did. Maybe I’m gettin’ too old for it. There was a sharpness to the exchanges with people that I hadn’t experienced before. For everyone who was civil to me, there were two to eat me alive: “Ye’re all the same,” “ye’re all useless,” “ye’re only in it for yerselves,”

I would come home night after night with comments like that ringing in my ears.

However, the abuse I got was nothing compared to what the candidates from the political parties got. All creeds and colours, from the Shinners to the Ffers and the Blueshirts, were accused of breaking promises, ruining the country and destroying people’s lives. In fact, at the beginning of the campaign it felt great to be an independent, but once the expenses and allowances were published we all became legitimate targets.

I came home one night last week after a very hard few hours on the doorsteps and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head and not get up for a month. However, the Mother came in just after me and brought some reassuring news. She heard from a little bird that a local poll to be published in the Weekly Eyeopener the following day would show that I was heading the poll and the national swing to independents was swinging particularly well for me.

“Now, cheer up,” says she, “we’ll have a drop of the craythur to celebrate.” We treated ourselves to two large whiskeys to mark the moment.

The following morning I was outside Manus’s shop to buy the paper even before he was open. Sure enough, the poll in the Eyeopener had me up there at the top followed by that hoor of a Percy Pipplemoth Davis and lagging well behind was Peter Treacy, Moll Gleeson and a few more party animals.

I was the happiest man in Killdicken until I met Tom Cantwell.

“That auld poll in the Eyeopener will do you no favours,” says he, “all the others will put out the word that ‘Maurice is fine,’ and they’ll be stealin’ your number ones out from under your nose. You’ll have to take the rosy look off that result fairly lively.”

How right he was. That afternoon, Moll Gleeson was doing the rounds with a funeral face on her, tellin’ people she was in mortal danger of losing her seat and that I was home and dry.

I’ll have to go around after her and pretend I’m more fecked than she is. Even when you’re ahead in this game you have to pretend to be behind. CL