Labour meeting: Fianna Fáil's allegations that the Labour Party would wreck the economy if elected next year are not credible since Fianna Fáil is trying to persuade Labour to go into coalition with them, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte has said.
Insisting that Labour will be "the driving force" in the next government, Mr Rabbitte said the public clearly wants an end to nine years of Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats coalition.
Speaking in Cork at the beginning of a two-day meeting of the Labour parliamentary party and general election candidates, he strongly attacked the record in office of the current administration.
"They amount to a tax and waste Government. To refer to Fine Gael and Labour as a 'slump coalition' is merely a term of political abuse.
"To say that the PDs and Fianna Fáil are a tax and waste Government is simply a matter of historical fact," he said.
The Fianna Fáil charges are "very amusing", he said. "Yet they are falling over themselves to get Labour into government with them. It is not credible. I anticipate that the arguments and campaign under way by Fianna Fáil to get somebody into government with them will continue but, I repeat, Labour and Fine Gael are embarked on a mission to provide change for the people of Ireland.
"We want to address the things that don't work in Irish society. The things that don't work are the responsibility of government."
He particularly rounded on the PDs following the party's clear intention to seek further tax cuts if re-elected: "We have a strong economy, but a weak society.
"More and more of our young people are realising that a strong economy with a weak society is not somewhere where they want to live. I would be very concerned to see the future of Ireland in the hands of a selfish agenda," he said.
Emphasising once more that Labour would not increase taxation, Mr Rabbitte said: "I have said that taxes are down and will stay down. I don't know what life-raft Michael McDowell is trying to clamber aboard to ensure the survival of the PDs.
"I have made our position on that. After that there is a desperate need to attend to the things in Irish society that have been neglected over the last nine years," he told journalists.
"They have been in government for nine years and promising now to do things in nine months that they haven't done in nine years is not very credible to me," said Mr Rabbitte, speaking at the the Silversprings Hotel.
In a speech to a closed session of the Labour meeting, Mr Rabbitte said Labour TDs, Senators and other election candidates had the opportunity to decide how they would offer "a fresh start" for voters.
"Fianna Fáil and the PDs are offering the Irish people only one thing at the next election - more of the same. More of the same tired, out-of-touch government, more of the policies that have failed to deliver for hardworking families."
Labour and Fine Gael were offering voters a centre-left alternative: "There are no aspirations, no vision, merely the clocking up of 15 years of ongoing failure in health, crime, education and the things that matter."
Labour's and Fine Gael's work on agreeing joint policies on crime, health and the economy had made "substantial and significant progress" and more would be made.
Though Labour will produce its own manifesto, he said it was necessary to have agreements on core issues such as these because of their "centrality" to the health and wellbeing of society.
