Poll reaction:The Taoiseach yesterday appealed to Fianna Fáil supporters to maximise the party's support and to vote on polling day. Commenting on yesterday's Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll, which showed support for Fianna Fáil up two percentage points, Mr Ahern said the party is "docked" 5 per cent in the poll because people do not turn up.
"If you turn up on the day, we will have 5 per cent more than on that poll," he said. Speaking at the daily Fianna Fáil election briefing, Mr Ahern said he wished the party was up 12 points and "that would help". Progress was slow and the party has to keep working on that, he said.
"But I think the message for us, for me and my colleagues and for all my people out in the country, is we have less than two weeks now. We have to work very hard in maximising our vote."
Mr Ahern said people have a simple choice - who will run the country for the next five years and who will be taoiseach for the next five years, he or Enda Kenny.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny yesterday said the poll showed "great stability" for Fine Gael and the "alliance for change".
He said it showed what he was learning in every constituency, that they would lead the next government.
Mr Kenny said the only poll that concerned him was the one on May 24th, the general election, but he was very happy about The Irish Times poll, which showed the alternative alliance had a lead of three points with two weeks to go to the election.
"It shows we are in a really strong position to lead the next government," Mr Kenny said during a visit to the Kerry North constituency, which included a stop-off at Tralee, yesterday.
Responding to the claim from Mr Ahern that the poll underestimated Fianna Fáil support by five percentage points, Fine Gael's director of elections, Frank Flannery, said: "These polls have a track record: they have been done on the exact, precise, same methodology for 11 years now. It's only now that people began to complain about them. They have always understated us in the past, but we're not complaining."
Responding to the poll, which showed Labour up three points, the party's leader, Pat Rabbitte, said that the trend out there is unmistakably to move away from the Government. He said he believed that trend would become more pronounced between now and polling day.
"People have made up their minds and they want to see a change in government.
"They have grown accustomed to the new affluence they have seen around them but they ask, 'why is the quality of my life not better if we're so wealthy? And why didn't the outgoing Government use the fruits of the boom to improve the quality of life'?"