LABOUR PARTY:LABOUR SAYS it has not given up hope of Eamon Gilmore becoming Taoiseach despite opinion polls showing the party running a distant second to Fine Gael.
The party’s justice spokesman, Pat Rabbitte, refused to concede that Mr Gilmore would not be Taoiseach after polling takes place next Friday.
Mr Rabbitte said there was still a long way to go in the election campaign and Labour was “contending” to lead the next government. If the public wanted a balanced road to economic recovery then the Labour plan was the best one, he said.
He defended Labour’s strategy of attacking Fine Gael “stealth taxes” in newspaper advertisements, saying he could see nothing wrong with pointing out what the other party was proposing.
He admitted it was unusual to have two parties competing to optimise their vote when they were likely to be partners in government. This had arisen because the election had effectively turned into a two-cornered contest, with Fianna Fáil out of the running.
Mr Rabbitte said many people were apprehensive at the prospect of a single-party Fine Gael government. In the current economic crisis, there was a need for a government that could command the allegiance of a broad cross-section of the electorate as it worked its way out of the mountain of debt incurred as a result of Fianna Fáil’s decisions.
Labour would act as a “brake” to defend the most vulnerable in society as well as defending and respecting public servants who were worried about Fine Gael’s policies, he said.
Differences that had arisen between Fine Gael and Labour during the campaign would not prove insuperable obstacles to forming a coalition, he said. He was speaking at the launch of plans by Labour to put in place a new constitution before the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising.