Fine Gael and Labour are to keep up the pressure on the Government by proposing a Dáil motion condemning its performance before the Dáil rises for the summer on Thursday. The two-day private members' motion, which also calls for an early election, is to be debated tomorrow and Wednesday. Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent, reports.
It lists 13 alleged Government failures in areas such as crime, health, education and taxpayers' value for money.
It comes as two senior ministers accept that the Government has endured one of its most difficult chapters following the statutory rape crisis and internal Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrat divisions.
Acknowledging the difficulties the Government was "undoubtedly having", Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea said it had endured "a troubled time" over the last two months.
Questioned about a new opinion poll, Minister of State for Children Brian Lenihan, whose political profile was sharply raised by the statutory rape crisis, said: "Yes, it's not that encouraging.
"But, again, you know, it's been a difficult month, no question about that, and we just have to pull ourselves together and get out of that," he told TV3's The Political Party.
However, Mr O'Dea, speaking after he launched a campaign to recruit more women into the Defence Forces, insisted that Fine Gael and Labour were failing to capitalise on the Government's difficulties.
"Despite the problems that the Government is undoubtedly having, the two Opposition parties who aspire to be in government don't seem to be making significant progress either."
Pointing to a fall in Labour's support, according to the Sunday Business Post/Red C poll, Mr Lenihan claimed that Labour's support was falling because of Fine Gael's "strong right-wing positions" adopted by Enda Kenny.
Key Opposition figures have expressed concern that the Government could get the opportunity to regroup over the summer following two of the worst months for the Cabinet since it returned to power in June 2002.
Describing the Government as "fractured, arrogant and tired", Fine Gael and Labour will declare that it has "lost initiative and coherence, and descended into aimless drift".
Mr Kenny last night highlighted the Supreme Court's statutory rape judgment last month when it threw out a 70-year-old law denying adults the right to claim that they did not know someone was a minor.
The Government's response, he said, had been "totally incompetent, disjointed and ill-judged".
He claimed that this proved that it was "out of touch with the concerns of ordinary families".
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said the Government was now "battered and bruised through a combination of its own incompetence and the emergence for the first time in almost 10 years of a clear alternative government".
The latest Sunday Business Post monthly tracking poll published yesterday reported that Fianna Fáil support was down 1 percentage point to 34 percentage points, while Fine Gael held steady at 26 percentage points.
According to the Sunday Business Post/Red C poll, support for Labour has dropped by 2 percentage points to 12 percentage points.
It said the support for the Progressive Democrats remained steady at 3 percentage points.
The Fine Gael/Labour motion will be defeated. However, some interest will be shown in the voting positions of Independent TDs as this will be a guide to their future attitudes if they are re-elected in next year's election.
Although it calls for an early election, the Fine Gael/Labour motion is not a motion of no confidence since such motions can only be moved once every six months, under Oireachtas rules.
Meanwhile, senior Fianna Fáil ministers will meet backbenchers four times this month.
The backbenchers have complained that they have not had enough influence on policies yet they have had to defend them in their constituencies.
The meetings will involve Ministers Brian Cowen, Mary Hanafin, Micheál Martin, Martin Cullen, Noel Dempsey, Séamus Brennan, Mary Coughlan, Éamon Ó Cuív, Dick Roche, and Minister of State for Transport Pat "the Cope" Gallagher.