The Labour Leader has accused the Government of being paralysed in terms of tackling issues such as childcare, the inadequacies of the health service, the drugs epidemic and anti-social behaviour.
Speaking on RTE Radio's This Weekprogramme, Mr Rabbitte said that he would be asking delegates at a meeting next week to endorse his strategy of a pre-election pact with Fine Gael as a way of presenting the public with a real alternative to the current Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrat coalition.
He said that if Fianna Fáil was to be successful in the next general election, the party would have been in government for almost 25 years and that such a situation was "corrosive" to democracy and "bad for our institutions".
Mr Rabbitte said the strategy had already been endorsed by the party's executive and its approval would mean that while Labour would be campaigning as an independent party on its own platform of polices, it would seek, if successful, to agree a statement of intent with Fine Gael on any future programme for governement.
He said that on principle he was not prepared to share government with Fianna Fáil and also ruled out any suggestion of a possible coalition between Labour, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin.