OPPOSITION REACTION:FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny has cited a "a sense of terror" in the Government after the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll, while Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said if a general election took place in the immediate future, Fianna Fáil would be put out of office.
Commenting after publication of poll figures showing a sharp fall in support for the coalition, Mr Kenny said the Government had displayed "weak and indecisive leadership".
"Clearly there is a mood out there to change, and it's the challenge of the Fine Gael party in particular to rise to that challenge," he said at the launch in Dublin of the party's post-Budget "winter campaign" against the Government.
Asked later on RTÉ radio whether he considered the Government was "fraying at the edges", Mr Kenny said: "This is not fraying at the edges. There's a sense of terror within the Government ranks and also within the Greens.
"Any government that would sit down at a table and decide formally to withdraw a programme of vaccination which can prevent cervical cancer from young girls of 10 to 12 years of age has lost touch with reality."
Mr Kenny said that, "with the defections from both Fianna Fáil and from Government support, the probability of an election is a little higher, but you don't have any indications other than that".
Fine Gael deputy leader and spokesman on finance Richard Bruton said at the campaign launch that the Government "has led the country down a path which has sapped the strength of what was the pride of Europe".
Commenting on his party's performance in the poll, where it registered a drop of one point to 14 per cent, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore said on RTÉ's News at One that Labour was "significantly ahead" of what it got at the last general election.
"The question that I ask myself is, 'Are we making improvements on where we were at the last general election?' - and we clearly are. We're pursuing a strategy which is about setting out a very separate, very distinctive, clear, Labour Party message, and we've been doing that on the economy, on issues like the banking crisis, on the area of unemployment and on the issue of quality public services. On top of that we are then building our organisation on the ground."
He continued: "The Labour Party is putting forward an alternative, it is a very distinctive alternative . . . it is setting out a very clear policy programme."
Asked for an assurance that Labour would not put Fianna Fáil back into government after the next general election, Mr Gilmore replied: "It's pretty clear from that poll that, if there were a general election in the morning, Fianna Fáil would not be in government."
Independent TD Finian McGrath has called on the Government to provide "clear leadership and listen to the people" and to refrain from attacking the elderly, sick and disabled.
He said: "People are prepared to take tough decisions in the national interest and they want to help our country in its hour of need. We all know and understand the serious economic crisis.
"Attacking the elderly, the sick and the disabled is not part of the agenda. Once the Government wake[s] up to this reality, we can work our way out of this mess," said the Dublin North Central TD, who formerly supported the Government.