Fine Gael party leader Mr Enda Kenny has called on the electorate to 'trust' him and his party, insisting that not all polticians or political parties were the same.
He made the call in his leader's address to the Fine Gael national convention in Galway yesterday eveing - a speech in which Mr Kenny used to outline his vision of the party.
In a impassioned appeal, he said he wanted to reach out to those he dubbed the 'quiet people of Ireland', who, he said, work hard and pay their taxes, yet were suffering under the current Fianna Fail-PD government.
Mr Kenny also announced his intention to work closely with Labour party leader Mr Pat Rabbitte, to convince the electorate that an alternative existed to the current government.
During the speech, Mr Kenny remarked that Fine Gael had taken 'difficult' positions on issues such as crime and neutrality, stances which would be vindicated in the long run. He also re-iterated his demand for a regeneration of benchmarking.
Earlier, the party's spokesperson on health, Ms Olivia Mitchell, criticised the centralisation of control within the health service, comparing the new moves to 'Soviet-style' control.