The Labour Party leader made a scathing attack on the Government yesterday, describing it as one of the most divisive and incompetent administrations in the history of the State.
Mr Ruairi Quinn was speaking in Carrick-on-Suir at the start of the by-election campaign of Ms Ellen Ferris in South Tipperary.
He said the Government, which he claimed was now terminally damaged, had resources at its disposal which were unthinkable even four or five years ago. But Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats had neither the political will nor the vision to put those resources to work for the benefit of the community.
It angered him that even with a Budget surplus of £6 billion, people must still join endless queues for medical care, workers on the minimum wage had their earnings taxed and affordable housing was fast becoming a distant memory.
Thanks to this Government, we had a successful economy but a more unequal society, he added. "Fianna Fail campaigned in the last general election on the slogan `People before Politics'. After three years, we now know exactly what people Fianna Fail were referring to, the rich and the privileged in Irish society. Fianna Fail has looked after them by halving capital taxes."
He said that the ordinary working people in towns such as Carrick-on-Suir had been ignored and insulted by an increasingly desperate and ramshackle Government. "Housing crisis grips the country. Our health services are struggling to cope with demand. Rural communities are under threat from declining incomes from family farms," he said.
Ms Ferris claimed the Celtic Tiger was not worth a curse if people could not obtain healthcare and if society became increasingly divided between the haves and the have-nots. It was the Labour Party's goal to use economic success to build a decent, caring and equal society. She was disgusted by the revelations of corruption and abuse that had dogged public life for the past three years.
The electorate in South Tipperary will go to the polls on June 22nd in a by-election necessitated by the sudden death last March of Ms Ferris's husband, Michael.