The main Opposition parties are planning intensive efforts to raise their profiles and halt the Government's recent opinion poll recovery in the new Dáil session, which opens today and continues until Easter.
Fine Gael and Labour are expected to use leaders' question time today to press the Government on its plans to allay concern over the effects of immigrant labour on pay and conditions in the wake of recent public controversy over the issue.
They will also continue their attacks on the Government over alleged wasteful public expenditure and the continued long waiting lists at A&E departments around the State.
The Government will use the upcoming debates on the finance Bill and the social welfare Bill, which implement most of the measures announced in last month's Budget, to press its case that it is primarily responsible for continued economic success.
Both Bills were on the Government's legislative programme for the new Dáil session which was published yesterday by Government Chief Whip Tom Kitt.
Mr Kitt repeated again that the Government intended to stay in office until 2007. "We intend sustaining the impressive pace of legislative reform that began in 2002," he said. "Our record to date indicates that we are very much on target to deliver on the legislative commitments contained in the agreed Programme for Government and, indeed, on other necessary legislative reforms."
The Government will be anxious to sustain the significant increase in public approval that was shown in the Irish Times/ TNS mrbi opinion poll whose results were published last Friday.
This session will see an escalation in the intensity of attacks on the Government by the main Opposition parties. Fine Gael and Labour will be particularly anxious to use the Dáil resumption to attract support for their ambition of providing an alternative government.
The 17 new pieces of legislation to be published in this session include long-awaited legislation designed to speed up the passage of important infrastructural projects through the planning system. The planning and development (strategic national infrastructure) Bill will be published by Minister for the Environment Dick Roche.
Minister for Health Mary Harney will be publishing the health (repayment scheme) Bill to set up the repayment scheme for those illegally charged for nursing-home care in the past.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell will publish his defamation Bill which was deferred last year after many Ministers demanded new privacy legislation be introduced simultaneously.
It could not be ascertained yesterday what is happening in relation to privacy legislation.
Bills already before the Oireachtas include the tribunals of inquiry Bill, designed to establish more streamlined methods of inquiring into matters of public importance.