Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has said that the trends of recent Irish Timesopinion polls suggest that it has established itself as the leading party that will consistently attract over 30 per cent of popular support.
Giving his first public reaction to the TNS/mrbi poll published in this newspaper this morning, Mr Kenny also pointed out that Fine Gael was now picking up support across all sections of society and in all regions.
The party was now attracting a significant blue-collar support and had overtaken the Labour Party as the most popular party for this cohort. Fine Gael was also showing very strongly in Dublin, and was poised to gain more seats there.
Party sources said that the slight drop of 2 per cent to 32 per cent was not fully unexpected given that Fine Gael has adopted a “tough medicine” stance and had not adopted populist stances on issues.
The Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore said that the 10 points surge in support for his party suggested that there was now a "third choice" of leadership for the electorate.
"I think that politics is now a three horse race. I have said for some time that the Labour Party of this country was going to offer the country a third choice in leadership of Government. That's what we are doing. I think the public is responding positively to that.
"We are not Fianna Fáil. We are not Fine Gael. We are not going to be defined by reference to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. We are going to put our case separately distinctly as the Labour Party," he said.
Mr Gilmore, speaking outside Leinster House, said that the approach of his party was chiming with the public mood right now. He also said that it seem to represent a more fundamental shift in Irish politics than the switching of allegiances from one party to another.
"It's tempting to interpret the poll purely in party political terms and this is great news for the Labour party. "I think it's measuring a very fundamental shift in political thinking for this country and reflecting a view that there is more to life than the economy. There is such a thing as society. We need each other," he said.
"[People] are looking for a sense of hope, of optimism, that we can get through the recession. I think that a lot of the positive suggestions that the labour Party have made is resonating with people. I think that the concentration that we have put on jobs in particular, the fact that jobs and employment is the key to getting the economy starting again."
He refuted the claim by Taoiseach Brian Cowen that Labour was resorting to easy and populist opposition, without coming up with any real suggestions as to how cuts in public spending would be achieved.
"The Labour Party has been more specific than any opposition party has ever been. It's not just about cuts and that's where the Taoiseach is fundamentally wrong," he said.
"We are proposing that the Government should suspend the plan of putting a levy on pensions go into discussions and agree to the €2 billion [in savings].
He said specific proposals made by Labour included ending tax reliefs for company directors and for property, which he said would save about €1 billion. He said that money could by a programme where some of the 350,000 public servants could take unpaid leave. He also said that nobody disagreed with a contribution towards a pension but that it had to be fair.