Leader's speech (edited): It was when Labour was last in government that Ireland made the historic transition from poor country to successful economy. More than 1,000 new jobs per week were being created when Labour left office and the public finances were back in surplus. The Rainbow Government was well on the way to creating a fairer Ireland.
Since then the economic progress has been maintained. But the momentum for a fairer Ireland has been stalled. We have a successful economy but a society under strain. Hard working families feel they are on a treadmill running faster to stand still. The government is remote from their lives and doesn't listen.
Taxes are down and will stay down. In a successful economy, with buoyant revenues, there is no need to increase taxation and Labour has no intention of doing so. We will end the waste of taxpayers' money and we will harness our economic prosperity to make our society fairer and our communities safer. And we will tackle the important things that don't work like the health services and crime prevention.
As I meet people up and down the country, I constantly hear the same things.
- Yes there is more money, but there are more bills and higher prices.
- Yes, taxes are lower, but there are indirect taxes and stealth taxes and new and higher charges.
- Yes, there is more work, but there is much less time for family.
- Yes, the present is better than the past, but will tomorrow be better than today? More and more people are asking: surely we can do better? This is the simple but powerful question being asked by the people whose efforts have made this country what it is today.
We have a successful economy and a hard-working enterprising people. Is it that difficult to make the hospitals work, to get the traffic moving and to ensure that we are safe on the streets and in our homes? If we produce some of the best doctors and nurses in the world, who have travelled under the plain flag of humanitarianism to the furthest corners of the globe: surely we can provide a decent health service at home.
If, for generations our people across the world have designed, planned and built every kind of road, railway and highway you can imagine, then we can build roads, bridges and railways here at home.
If the men and women of our Defence Forces and An Garda Síochána, are keeping the peace and protecting civilian populations from East Timor to Liberia under the flag of the United Nations - then we can protect our people at home, police our communities and tackle anti-social behaviour.
If as a country we have a literary tradition second to none, from Joyce and Yeats to Heaney and McGahern, surely we can teach every child to read? If we can disarm militias in west Africa, we can disarm drug gangs in west Dublin.
I choose to believe that we can do these things. We can make tomorrow better than today. Ireland can do better.
If our people want change - and I believe that they do - it can only happen if we get rid of the two parties in Government. It's not just that the meat in the sandwich is rancid and sour, the entire sandwich is soggy and stale.
The last time the Labour Party met in conference, we made a decision that has re-energised Irish politics. We made it our goal to change the Government.
There is abroad an unmistakable mood for change. The people gave Fianna Fáil and PDs nine years and billions of taxpayers' money to improve the health services. What we got is a national emergency.
They have had nine years to combat crime and anti-social behaviour. Instead detection rates are falling and serious crime is worsening. They have had nine years to get our infrastructure right. The progress has been limited and costly.
Since our conference in Tralee, we have been successful in convincing public opinion that there is now the prospect of an alternative government comprising Labour and Fine Gael. We must now convince people to vote for that change. People will vote for an alternative government that shows a capacity to listen and makes an honest effort to ease the pressures of modern living.
The stress and cost of childcare.
The worry of accessing hospital care for a sick parent. The anxiety that stems from the high incidence of crime, drug abuse and anti-social behaviour.
The inadequacy of public transport. How to pay for your child's brace. These are the problems which can be solved.
When it comes to healthcare, Labour in government will accept responsibility, not hide behind the HSE.
Firstly, we will give top priority to sorting out the hospitals crisis. There is no answer to the chaos in A&E without providing more beds.
Secondly, we will get the simple things right. Some healthcare is complicated, but a lot isn't. If someone is in a hospital ward, or in A&E, they should at least be able to find a clean toilet! They are entitled to expect that the hospital will be clean. Going into hospital should be about being cured not about risking a new illness.
Thirdly, we will keep as much healthcare as local as we can. We will modernise the services offered by family doctors, so that, as far as possible, people are treated in a place they know by people they know. That way, fewer people need to be in hospital in the first place.
Fourthly, we will stop the Harney plan to use tax breaks to assist developers to build super-private clinics on public hospital grounds. We will maintain hospitals as not-for-profit foundations, and we will invest in them. For Labour, health is a public service not a market commodity.
Fifthly, we will reform the way hospitals work, so that money follows the patient, and doctors and hospitals are paid in line with the treatment they provide for patients. This is the key to tackling the waste and inefficiency in the health service and ensuring that people get the care they deserve.
Five clear commitments. More beds, get the simple things right, keep care local where you can, keep our hospitals not-for-profit, and tackle waste.
Health in itself is a good enough reason to change the government. But it is not the only reason.
We don't just want a different government, we need a better government - an alternative government that will have Labour in the driving seat of change.
Labour will not apologise for defending the European social model. Labour will not go into denial about displacement and exploitation in the workplace but rather will protect the employment standards of all workers.
Labour supports social partnership. Change in the workplace and the modernisation of our public services should be negotiated, but no interest group has the right to veto changes which are necessary for the public good.
When 130,000 young people can't get a driving test, Labour will not shrug its shoulders and walk away. The rights of those young people and the imperative of road safety overrides any other consideration.
Being Labour means being on the side of the people in our communities who work harder and longer, pay their taxes, play by the rules, do what's right, raise their families and get on with their lives.
There are some for whom the only measure of commitment to social justice is your willingness to increase taxes on working people. I have never believed that. For me the yardstick is fairness - justice in the tax code and everyone paying their share, something that has not been happening. What is needed now is not more taxation, but fair taxation.
At a time when the finance Minister discovers two and a half billion euro in extra revenue after Budget day, it is plain that the economic agenda now is not about taxation. Taxes are down and they should stay down. Those not paying should be pursued. Those tax incentives without economic merit should be terminated.
The agenda now is about getting better value for money from public spending.
Not being able to afford improvement in quality public services is no longer the problem. The problem is the delivery of services and this Government is part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
At the same time, wewill enhance, not diminish, the core democratic values of openness, honesty and accountability that are central to how the public's business should be conducted.
Labour in Government will restore the Freedom of Information Act.
Already, Labour and Fine Gael have agreed a set of proposals for Dáil reform.
We need a working national parliament that is relevant and seen to be relevant.
Meanwhile crime and the Minister for Justice are both out of control. We are the only state in Europe where the gardaí outside the Minister's house are there to protect the public from the Minister.
While the Minister lectures, crime is worsening and detection and conviction rates are falling. Labour will invest in community policing that will put gardaí visibly patrolling communities. The deadly trade in drugs is driving crime at all levels. The Gardaí must be equipped to sit on those peddlers of death until they are put behind bars. Labour in government will restore support for the local drugs taskforces and for the role of the community in reducing demand for drugs.
Our modern society has a serious behaviour problem and we all have to face up to it. Late night street violence and drunkenness; vandalism of public property; indiscriminate defacement and littering; schoolyard bullying, classroom indiscipline and neighbourhood intimidation are all expressions of the selfish side of modern Ireland.
Whether we are teaching someone to read, or pushing out the boundaries of knowledge in our universities, we must build a learning community. It is only through education, innovation and training, up-skilling and retraining, that we will lay down the basis for a high-tech economy and extend opportunity to all our people, including those losing their jobs to cheaper locations.
There is much to be proud of in our education system, but there are also real problems. Only last month, the OECD criticised our education system in terms which should be a source of deep concern to all of us. When our future prosperity depends on an "A" plus education system, this government has been rated as "C" minus. It was Parnell who said that no man has a right to fix a boundary to the march of a nation. We must say that no country has a right to fix a boundary to a child's imagination.
That is why Labour is committed to providing one year's free pre-school education for every child in Ireland.
Across the country, there is a demand for change. Watching this Government is like watching a bad week of Big Brother. It is time to vote them out.
It's time to replace them with a government of fresh ideas, in touch with the needs of families and communities.
The great Labour organiser, Jim Larkin, expressed himself not satisfied with bread only, but also wanted roses.
Today, across Europe, parties of the left have adopted the rose as their emblem.
Labour's rose is a symbol of a better tomorrow, a tomorrow where there is bread but where there are roses too.
A tomorrow where you can catch your breath, see past the pressures of today and enjoy what life has to offer.
A tomorrow where there is time for the kids, help in looking after your ageing parents and the opportunity to do more than just get by. A tomorrow where families can plan a better future.