The electorate is faced with a choice between a party with an "appetite for success" and parties who have no interest in incentive or profit, the Progressive Democrat leader Michael McDowell said today.
Launching the PDs' latest poster campaign, Mr McDowell said the choice was between a party with an "appetite for success" and parties which "have never been known for an interest in incentive or profit, never favoured foreign direct investment [and] regard the term mulitnational as a dirty word".
"Is the 24th of May [election day] going to be the date in three years' time, when we look back on it and say: that was the day that the Irish people lost self-confidence; went for a government composed of a weak, inexperienced leadership, divided ideologies and divided aims and values."
He said he was not using scare tactics but he warned that foreign investors would look at Ireland under the alternative coalition could drive potential investors away.
Mr McDowell said the Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte believed "the duty of a finance minister is to afflict comfortable and comfort the afflicted".
"If they see that kind of person there, they're going to ask themselves, is this society really up for it in the way that has been in the past ten years? And if the answer is not either no, or even a question mark, they will go elsewhere."
The Progressive Democrats was asking the electorate to decide whether May 24th would be the "high tide mark of Irish prosperity".
"Do you go for prosperity or do you go for a government which marks the beginning of the end," Mr McDowell said.