Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte may be boxing himself into a corner by appearing to rule out serving in a future coalition with the Progressive Democrats, Tánaiste Mary Harney said yesterday.
She was responding to remarks by Mr Rabbitte that his party was campaigning for an alternative to the PD agenda, and had nothing in common with that party.
While Mr Rabbitte did not explicitly rule out entering a coalition with the PDs, he devoted a speech in Dún Laoghaire on Thursday night to denouncing the party, its record and its philosophy.
Ms Harney told RTÉ Radio's News at One yesterday that the PDs "have no preference as to a Fianna Fáil-led government or a Fine Gael-led government. It seems to me, however, that Pat Rabbitte wants to box himself into a corner and maybe his party will leave him in that corner after the next election".
Mr Rabbitte told a party meeting on Thursday that Michael McDowell had made it clear that the PDs thought inequality was good for society. Labour was campaigning for an alternative to the PD agenda.
"We want to see fairness in taxation, fairness in our health and education systems, a fairness that ensures that people in all our communities, both rural and urban, no longer live in fear of criminality ... I believe that working with Fine Gael we can make substantial progress towards those ends."
Poking fun at Ms Harney's suggestion that the PDs could enter government with Fine Gael and Labour, he said: "I thought it was the PD view that Labour in government would raise taxes, cause a flight of capital, cause investment to dry up and return the country to the basket case it was before the PDs were born. And now it seems that the only thing wrong with the alternative government of Labour and Fine Gael is that it won't include the PDs!"
He said that for the PDs to start indicating their willingness to join another government if things don't go so well for them at the next election involved "breathtaking arrogance".
While the PDs claimed to have broken the mould of Irish politics, "the mould looks pretty safe and unchipped to me. Set up in opposition to Mr Haughey, they returned him to government within four years of their establishment.
"They presided over the biggest pre-election splurge in Irish electoral history in 2001 and 2002. As far as fiscal irresponsibility goes, they can compete only with the Fianna Fáil of 1977-79 from which they sprung.
He said that at least Mr McDowell was honest about his party's philosophy. He was "on record as believing that inequality is an economic incentive, and good for society".