Labour leader:There was a mood for change among the electorate which would lead to a change of government on polling day, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said in Dublin yesterday at his party's final news conference.
He told reporters he had "a firm conviction that on polling day that mood for change that is out there has not gone away, and, as our poster says, 'Five more years - no thanks'. They deserve to be put into opposition."
Mr Rabbitte said the Government's proposal for private clinics on public hospital land was "a disgrace and a scandal".
He hoped it would get more debate in the remaining hours of the campaign, and went on to criticise the lack of media attention to this and other issues.
Commenting on media coverage, Mr Rabbitte said: "Two weeks given over to a consideration of Mr Ahern's unusual banking arrangements have meant that we have not been able to have the discussion and the debate on the big issues that we ought to have had in the public interest."
He thanked reporters at the news conference "for your diligent attention and attendance throughout this campaign", but added that "big claims" had been made by Fianna Fáil which were "not much analysed".
On the question of coalition, he said: "We have set out to offer the people an alternative government that will implement the great part of our manifesto.
"I am still absolutely persuaded that it is in the best interests of this country at this juncture that there is a change of government."
When it was put to him that, in a series of interviews in January, he was ambiguous on the question of coalition with Fianna Fáil, Mr Rabbitte said: "If I gave 'Yes' or 'No' answers back in January, the Labour Party would be written out of the frame in the sense that we would be regarded as already spoken-for and, last January, it would have turned into a contest between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
"In the last week, for example, all we are hearing is Bertie versus Enda and Enda versus Bertie, and that's inevitable in the sense that it always comes down to taoiseach versus alternative taoiseach.
"But in those circumstances it is difficult for the Labour Party to stay in the frame."
Asked if his ambiguity was calculated, he said: "I wasn't going to put myself into a position where I would put the Labour Party out of the frame last January."
Rejecting any possibility of accepting Sinn Féin support for putting Fianna Fáil out of office, he said: "I don't want to see a situation where either government combination would be reliant on Sinn Féin, and Sinn Féin would be driving it from outside."
