The Labour Party will not be "a cheap date" in potential government formation talks after the election on Saturday, Senator Ged Nash has said.
“The fact of the matter is the outcome of the election on Saturday isn’t going to be that clear,” Mr Nash said, speaking outside Leinster House at one of the party’s final press conferences of the campaign.
“We’ve made it very very clear that we’re not going to be in any way a cheap date for anybody,” he said. The party had set five “very clear bottom lines” as a precondition to any potential coalition negotiations, he said.
These were commitments to fix the health service, build homes, introduce a living wage, genuine actions to tackle climate change, and the provision of affordable childcare, he said.
“We will not enter negotiations with potential coalition partners, or who we might support from a confidence and supply minority perspective unless at the outset those five core demands are acceded to,” Nash said.
Nash, who is seeking to win back a seat in Louth, said promises from other parties of both tax cuts and increased public spending was a “three card trick”.
Labour Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who is running in Dublin Bay North, said the party was "happy to work with other parties in order to achieve things".
“We’ve been honest, straightforward, in what we’re trying to achieve, we can increase public expenditure and fix health and build homes, we can invest in public infrastructure, but we can’t do it while doing tax cuts at the same time,” he said.
“I think people have listened to what we have been saying and cut through a lot of the other narratives from other political parties, who are offering all sorts of tax cuts and also pretending that you can increase spending as well,” Ó Ríordáin said.
Senator Ivana Bacik, the party's director of elections, said Labour was still hoping to double their number of seats from seven to 14, from a field of 31 candidates.
The party was calling for voters to give their first preference to Labour candidates, and then continue their preference for other progressive centre left parties, but not Sinn Féin.
“Brendan [HOWLIN]has made clear the position on Sinn Féin and the difficulty he has with that, but he has said to parties like the Greens, like the Soc Dems to commit to preferences onwards from the number one vote for Labour,” Ms Bacik said.
