WITH the General Election over,

those posters may end up being taken back out of the TDs’ attics before the Christmas decorations. But another more arduous and less glamorous election campaign begins now.

Over a drink at Christmas, Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe told me he did not face the forthcoming election with trepidation.

Here was a man who failed to be elected to the Dáil in the 2007 general election and failed again in the 2009 by-election to fill the seat of the late Tony Gregory. But they were not the campaigns that caused him to wake with a start at night. No, he said, it was the Seanad campaign of 2007 that did.

Veteran senators, such as Roscommon’s Terry Leyden and Mayo’s Paddy Burke, have been through many of them and understand the rhythms and mysteries of the Seanad circuit. But some general election candidates, fresh from bruising constituency campaigns, must return to the fray immediately.

Some will receive party nominations in the coming days, increasing their chances of being elected because most Seanad places are attained through the votes of county councillors – and councillors usually vote for their party colleagues.

Yet to win their vote requires a nationwide campaign, travelling to all corners of the island and being away from home for weeks on end. Paschal, a hardened pro, said it was the toughest campaign of all.

Still, with the faint hope of an overhaul of Oireachtas business, the Seanad – which was almost abolished a few years back – might actually have a role to play in the next couple of years.