The Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, attacked the "watchdog politics" of the Progressive Democrats yesterday, saying they had failed in that role in coalition with Fianna Fáil.
Mr Noonan, in stating his preference for a coalition with the Labour Party, also questioned why the Progressive Democrats did not believe the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, should be trusted with an overall majority, "if Fianna Fáil has been so wonderful for the past five years".
"If Cúchulainn's dog was there guarding the gates, making sure Fianna Fáil did not get up to mischief, they would still get up to mischief," he said.
Mr Noonan was in Limerick with colleagues to launch "A Different kind of Ireland", the party's programme for government.
He said the programme was "filling out the picture" of its manifesto. "The implications of these proposals is including in the costing information we published with the manifesto," he said.
Reflecting on the campaign so far, he referred to a series of "travel tales and anecdotes" of people around the State affected by health, crime, housing, insurance and childcare problems. They were part of "a depressing list of failures" and the evidence that the boom had been squandered.
Despite Fianna Fáil doing well in the opinion polls, the party was not winning in the streets from what people were saying, Mr Noonan asserted. "This [the election] is going to be fought out right until election day, until the last vote is counted."
Mr Richard Bruton said Fine Gael "cares about the quality of our lives" and wanted to improve the environment, rebuild rural communities, sustain all regions of the country and make arts and culture more accessible to all.
Fianna Fáil said the new document from Fine Gael "contained absolutely no details of the costings of the hundreds of promises they are making."
"Even though there are over 250 spending commitments, the costings have not been provided for one of them, " said Mr Séamus Brennan, former chief whip.
"Almost as stunning as this is the fact that the programme has no specific commitment to extra hospital bed numbers. Even though Michael Noonan has travelled the country promising new hospitals to anyone who'd listen - Fine Gael has no proposal to fund them," he said.
"Once again the message is that Fine Gael are promising everything to everyone in a desperate attempt to scramble into power."