PD conference: The Progressive Democrats will stay in power with Fianna Fáil until the middle of next year to complete the Programme for Government, the new PD leader Michael McDowell has emphasised.
Pointing out at a press conference in Dublin yesterday that he has worked closely with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern since 1999, he said they had "always worked closely together as partners in whatever enterprise we were involved and on the basis of trust.
"I have no doubt that the Progressive Democrats as a political party deserves the trust that has been put in them. We are honest, we are capable and we are team players," said Mr McDowell, who will become Tánaiste today.
He said Fine Gael and Labour were offering the electorate "a slump coalition".
"I believe that the Irish people, when confronted with the choices that are emerging, will decisively reject the slump coalition on offer and will give a renewed mandate to the parties which have brought Ireland success."
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and Labour leader Pat Rabbitte had 48 years' service in the Dáil between them. "I won't say anything negative here today but I will say this - an outstanding achievement doesn't immediately leap to mind in respect of either of them."
Though he clearly prefers to aim for a new deal with Fianna Fáil, Mr McDowell did not completely rule out FG and Labour even though "they have effectively handcuffed themselves together".
"They have stated quite clearly that it is their aim to get us out of office and to end our influence in Irish politics.
"I don't see in those circumstances, as long as they continue in that flawed strategy, that there is any opportunity for this party to make joint cause with them.
"I believe that they should be condemned to the logic of their position, which is to pose before the Irish people as the lead elements in a slump coalition.
"I don't believe that we should taint ourselves, or devalue ourselves in the eyes of the Irish electorate, by being ambiguous or ambivalent in our judgment about their potential."
The next election would produce "a conclusive and emphatic result", with voters turning "their backs on the politics of failure".
"We are not in the business of saying to the Irish electorate that we are going to stagger over the finishing line in summer 2007 and ask the Irish people in that context to give us another vote because the other shower are worse, or words to that effect.
"We are confident that the Irish people will respond to a courageous and challenging agenda if it is put before them."
Fine Gael and Labour, he said, would not be able to "govern by themselves and will have to assemble a rag-bag supporting army of ideological soul mates to have any prospect of governing.
"People are going to look at that entire package and say 'the scales have fallen from our eyes' and say 'no thanks to the Mullingar accord, no thanks to a slump coalition, no thanks to a return to the politics of failure'."
He said the Progressive Democrats would remain a radical, liberal party.
Ireland did not need "another catch-all, convergent, centrist party" in 1985 and it did not need one now. "We needed a party of change based on a liberal, social outlook, a liberal economic outlook, a party that was not seeking office for its own sake but was always seeking office to implement an agenda."
Reforms implemented by Mary Harney as Minister for Health and Children would take time to work, and existing problems would not evaporate between now and the next general election.
"Firstly, the HSE has been put up and running. Right across the board new ways of dealing with problems in our hospitals and health systems are now being implemented.
"Reform wasn't going to happen overnight . . . It requires steady, sustained ministerial guidance, which she is giving. It requires a constant willingness to confront those who are standing in the way of change and convert them to the cause of change."
The Progressive Democrats would not undergo "some cataclysmic change" under his leadership compared with that of Ms Harney: "Both of us have always had a huge, shared vision of what we believe Irish politics is all about - liberal republicanism, social liberalism and economic liberalism."
