The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, has called for a transfer pact between all Opposition parties in the Dublin South Central by-election. At the official start of the party's by-election campaign he said the best way to ensure the current Government was beaten was for transfers across the board among opposition candidates.
Mr Bruton said that while the party's candidate, Ms Catherine Byrne, was "not the bookies' favourite", she was capable of causing an upset. At the 1997 general election Fine Gael took one of the four seats in Dublin South Central.
The Fine Gael leader said if Ms Byrne was not successful in the forthcoming by-election she would be elected at the next general election when Dublin South Central gains an extra seat in constituency revisions.
He said turnout would be the key to winning the by-election which "would be decided by the people who stayed at home". Polling in the by-election, caused by the death of the Labour TD, Dr Pat Upton, is fixed for October 28th.
At the campaign launch in Dolly's County Kitchen cafe in Kimmage, Ms Byrne said Fine Gael would focus on affordable childcare, long hospital waiting lists and inadequate facilities for elderly people.
She said the Government could not brush "under the carpet" the ongoing revelations about the former Fianna Fail leader, Mr Charles Haughey.
Ms Byrne said that while Mr Haughey "was decking himself out like some puffed-up Napoleon, it was not tonight Josephine" for the rest of us. It's still "not tonight for the 1,500 ordinary Josephines and ordinary Joes who are waiting for a bed in St James's Hospital".
The Fine Gael candidate said "old people, sick people and people with disabilities are still waiting for the better way" promised by Fianna Fail in 1987.
"The people who coped then are still barely coping now holding their breaths while the heirs to Mr Haughey's rotten legacy let the health services fall apart," Ms Byrne said.
The leader of the Labour Party expressed concern about voter apathy at the start of his party's by-election campaign at Mother Redcap's Inn on Sunday.
Mr RuairI Quinn said he was confident that the party's candidate, Dr Mary Upton, sister of the late Dr Pat Upton, would win the election. However, he said there was no room for complacency and the party was particularly conscious that voter apathy could be a problem.
He said the by-election would provide the voters of Dublin South Central "with the opportunity to fire a warning shot across the bows of this Government" on matters such as the nurses' pay dispute and revelations at the Moriarty tribunal.
Dr Upton was a candidate of exceptional ability who would prove to be as fine a public representative as was her late brother, Mr Quinn added.