At last the phoney war is over. The Dail was dissolved this morning at 8am and the Election is set for Thursday May 24th. The posters can go up and the battle well and truly gets underway.

With the formal campaign underway, new rules set in. Candidates could spend what they wanted up to now and some have spent vast sums in the past few months. But from today we all have to respect the spending limits set down in law. So in Dublin West the most any candidate can spend is about €30,000 and in my case the Labour Party nationally takes a fair slice of my allowance to meet the costs of the national campaign.

I welcome these limits as candidates can easily lose the run of themselves in spending money on elections. From today every cent has to be recorded in case the Election Commission carries out an audit.

Today will be hectic but its Sunday and the sun is shining and a quiet calm before the storm will be in place too. Pat Rabbitte is stating his national tour in Dublin West tomorrow so we need to get things ready for his visit. He has made a number of visits in the last few months and has made it his business to give me every support in the coming weeks.

Apart from the local campaign I have to be available to take part as Finance Spokesperson in the national campaign. Juggling one with the other is a headache for my campaign team but it has to be done.

One thing I share with Bertie is his preference for a summer election. The signs are for a sunny campaign with lot of outdoor canvassing. The long evenings are wonderful too as people don’t mind so much coming to the door to talk and discuss the issues.

This is going to be an exciting election nationally as the race has now become very competitive. Locally it’s the same as Dublin West just has 3 seats. Every vote counts in a tight 3 seat constituency and every candidate knows that.

Lets hope for a hard fought campaign on the issues that matter