Labour will be demanding compromises on policy from Fine Gael and the Greens if the three parties are to form an alliance before the next election, Mr Pat Rabbitte said yesterday.
Addressing the Labour TDs and senators in Wexford, the party leader said that policy differences between the opposition parties would have to be seriously addressed before a pre-election pact could be agreed.
While he accepted that Labour would have to make its own compromises, the party would not turn away from its own fundamental values.
Mr Rabbitte also attacked the economic policies of the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and claimed the Government was preparing to "buy the people's votes with their own money" in the next Budget.
He was speaking in the Ferrycarrig Hotel at the opening of a two-day meeting of Labour TDs and senators at which they are preparing their strategy for the new Dáil term.
The meeting was overshadowed by the dilemma facing Labour over the presidential election, although Mr Rabbitte stressed the need to develop an alliance capable of taking power from the Government in the next election.
"The Irish people expect the political system to demonstrate the capacity to offer an alternative government. They expect to see the shape and substance of that alternative," he said.
While the Greens were not included in the "Mullingar Accord" between Fine Gael and Labour, Mr Rabbitte made it clear in his speech that an alliance of three parties would be required to form an alternative government.
"I don't want to pretend that will be easy, or that we will have a coherent platform in place overnight. Even if it were easy I don't believe it should be done overnight," he said.
"There are policy differences between the three parties that could together form a government, and we will need to address them seriously, and on a basis of mutual respect.
"Without abandoning fundamental values, we may indeed have to make our own compromises in the interests of agreement, just as we will be expecting compromises from others."
While stating that he had made a commitment to build an alternative to the Government within the opposition, Mr Rabbitte said there would be widespread disillusionment with politics in all its forms if the Coalition parties were to win the next election.
Stating that an alternative government would be based on social democratic principles, equal rights, liberty and the rule of law, he said Labour itself had to make "a huge organisational effort" to win more Dáil seats.
Mr Rabbitte accused Mr Ahern of engaging in a cynical exercise by inviting Father Seán Healy of the Conference of Religious in Ireland to address the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party last week.
"It is profoundly politically dishonest for the Taoiseach and Government to feign an interest in the agenda of Father Seán Healy at the same time as pledging to implement the existing Programme for Government," he said.
Mr Rabbitte said that Mr Ahern would try to present a new face of Government.
"All the indications are that nothing of any substance is going to change, that the Taoiseach is a bit like a garage mechanic with a clapped-out car, whose best recommendation is a couple of slightly used remould tyres and a coat of wax polish to hide the scrapes and dents," he said.
