Leader's speech:The following is an edited version of Michael McDowell's address to the Progressive Democrats national conference in Wexford on Saturday night:
In the next 90 days the general election will be called. It's going to be a difficult, hard-fought and challenging general election for the Progressive Democrats. It's going to be a challenging election for Ireland.
The choice we make won't just decide our future for the next five years. We will decide whether Ireland really has any long-term future as a dynamic, prosperous, growing and self-confident country; whether Ireland is to remain a place in which our children can live and work and bring up their families.
Or is Ireland to be led back down the wrong road - the rocky road back to failure, recession, unemployment, emigration, and an end to the sense of hope and self-confidence which has transformed this island?
We can't change history but we can change our future. In so many ways, when we take up the pencil in the polling booths, we take our children's futures in our hands. If Ireland sleepwalks into electing a Dáil in which the balance of power is held by an incoherent patchwork of incompatible parties, that Dáil will end up with a makeshift, confused and fragmented government. If Ireland elects a Dáil with no clear mandate for prosperity and success, Ireland will sleepwalk into a slump.
How we mark our ballot papers will decide whether this was the generation that had success in its grasp and nurtured it, or whether it was the generation that threw it all away.
In the 21 years since the Progressive Democrats were founded, Ireland has set out on a path, that has brought us from bad to good. That's the path that can now bring us from good to great.
To succeed, Ireland has in many respects to be like a successful county team. Winning teams never ease off when they're ahead.
Nor should Ireland. We have to stay on top of our game to attract jobs and investment to our country. The battle has to be won, every match and every season. If you want to win games, put out your best team and leave the others on the subs' bench.
Environment: A major challenge for Ireland today, and Ireland tomorrow, is environmental sustainability. Ireland must play its part in addressing issues such as CO2 emissions and global warming. Environmental sustainability need not be a negative; Ireland can treat sustainability as an opportunity.
The Progressive Democrats have always been champions of the environment. When Mary Harney was a minister in the Department of the Environment we created the Environment Protection Agency, we tackled the coal smog in our cities, we tackled the corrupt Section 4 rezoning scandal, we ended the scandal of planning compensation.
We led the way on conservation issues such as the drift net ban when others wobbled. Decentralisation is sustainability in practice. Despite all the pessimists, Tom Parlon is bringing many state agencies and departments to parts of Ireland where thousands of public servants - who are tired of commuting - can now live and work in their own communities. He's bringing the Department of Environment here to Wexford to join the EPA. Decentralisation makes environmental sense. And it will succeed. Keep up the good work Tom!
Health: In 2½ years, Mary Harney has put everything into one of Ireland's greatest political challenges - the radical reform of our health system.
She has swept away the antiquated and ineffective health board system, which held back progress for so many years. She has established the Health Services Executive under Brendan Drumm. She has greatly expanded the availability of medical cards.
She has introduced the innovative "doctor-only" medical cards.
She has driven forward the National Treatment Purchase Fund - a Progressive Democrats policy - which dramatically cut waiting times for thousands of patients.
Hospital by hospital, we are seeing a huge reduction in Accident and Emergency waiting times already and the next year will see this dramatic change of our A&E services completed.
Mary Harney has made provision for a huge increase in the number of trainee doctors. She has expanded the role of nurses in prescribing drugs.
She is implementing far-reaching reform in our GP services, right across Ireland. She is implementing a system for safer and better nursing homes. She is the first minister to tackle MRSA through audited hygiene standards.
She has tackled - with courage and commitment - the issue of consultants, with a view to recruiting 1,500 more and bringing common sense to the consultants' common contracts. She has introduced homecare packages for the elderly and is bringing an entirely new approach to long-term care for the elderly so that no elderly person will ever have to sell their home to pay for their care.
Mary Harney is determined to get a fair balance between public and private medicine; not to privatise the health service, not to nationalise the health service. She won't allow ideology to block progress or to hold it back.
She wants to finish the job, not to leave it. Yes, she faces powerful interest groups with hidden agendas. A daily blizzard of bad-news stories is unleashed from within the system in the hope of derailing the process of reform. Some people think that by talking down the health service that they will keep it as it is. But those people are wrong.
Rule of Law/Crime: A party founded by Des O'Malley is a party passionate about upholding the law and the Constitution. Just as Des had to stand up to the Provos when they started their campaign of murder and mayhem in the 1970s, it fell to me as Minister for Justice to stand up to their campaign of criminality since my appointment.
If it hadn't been for this party and the line we took in confronting the Provos, they might have very well succeeded in entering the political mainstream while still engaged in organised crime.
The St Andrews Agreement to bring about the final implementation of the Good Friday Agreement simply could not have occurred if we had not stood firmly for the rule of law. We stood by the Republic. We stand by the Republic.
And I would say this to anyone who wants an each-way bet on democratic politics and organised crime: "We haven't gone away you know." When it comes to tightening up our criminal law, some talk about the constitutional rights of those charged with crime. Can I tell you that there is also a constitutional right not to be murdered? There is a constitutional right not to have your family taken hostage. There is a constitutional right not to have your child die of a drug overdose. There is a constitutional right not to bury your innocent son as the victim of gangland violence.
These are the rights that the Irish State is bound by the Constitution to uphold. These are the rights that every organ of the Irish State - law-makers, Government and courts - has a duty to defend and vindicate.
I am about to bring before the Oireachtas a further package of measures designed to tilt the scales of justice away from the evil people who exploit every protection afforded to the innocent, to carry on the deadly handiwork of the guilty.
I am proud of An Garda Síochána. I stood by the force in dark days when its reputation was at risk. I have never let the Garda Síochána down. I have demanded change and I have led change.
When we said that we would expand the force by 2,000 members I was told by the Opposition parties that it would take 21 years. Let me tell you this, the recruited strength of the force will reach 14,300 this year and 15,000 next year. We deliver on our commitments.
One of the major advances for An Garda Síochána in the last year was the establishment of the Garda Reserve. I believe that in this day and age, it is vital that the Force has active links with allies in every local community. In years to come the Garda Reserve will be seen as a great step forward for An Garda Síochána.
A key element of our formula for economic success is our determination to bring about sustained reform of our taxation system.
We are no johnny-come-latelys to low rates of taxation or to the concept of freeing people's incomes so that they can make a good life for themselves and their families.
Tomorrow we will be considering a major programme of tax reform, including income tax and stamp duty, on which we have been working for months which is fully costed and thought-out, and which is achievable in the lifetime of the next government. I can tell you tonight that I will be proposing to the General Council that in the lifetime of the next government we will reduce income tax rates to 18 per cent and 38 per cent respectively.
We will be setting out our plans to bring competition and consumer choice to every corner of the Irish economy. We will be presenting our plans for pensions - both old-age pensions and private pensions - and our agenda for the care of our senior citizens.
We delivered on our 1997 pledge to bring the pension to £100. We delivered on our 2002 pledge to bring the pension to €200. We will deliver on the €300 pension over the next five years.
In the next 90 days we will put before the Irish people a visionary agenda for a prosperous Ireland that cares for all its citizens, and that cares for its environment.
I believe that the Irish people respect and will elect politicians who show vision, conviction, capacity and honesty.
I believe that the Irish people see through phoney promises which are the fruit of desperation, not conviction.
At this point of the electoral cycle exactly five years ago, we faced a daunting challenge in which our opponents and our critics wanted to write us out of the script.
This point five years ago, I was told, on live television, that an independent opinion poll placed me at the bottom of the list among candidates in my own constituency. We got out there and worked for 90 days. On election day, we came in first.
That's what we've all got to do now - get out there and work for the next 90 days. Get out there and work for Ireland.
Are you up for it? Are you with me? The stakes couldn't be higher for Ireland.
Ireland needs you more than ever. Roll up your sleeves get out and work to give Ireland the government that the next generation deserves.
For us and for Ireland now is not the time to turn back. Don't throw it all away, the best has yet to come.