Leader's speech: The following is an edited version of Enda Kenny's keynote speech to the Fine Gael ardfheis...
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for change in this country. Change for the better. Today, we live remarkable lives. Not so long ago, we were one of the least developed countries in Europe. Today, we're the second richest.
We're taking on the world in sport, in business, in literature, in the arts. And in all of them, we excel. We win. The names O'Driscoll, Harrington, Banville, Ruby Walsh, O'Sullivan - these names have become synonymous with excellence, with achievement, with international success, with this extraordinary new Ireland.
These days, Ireland feels at home in a world where we can send laser pulses 24 million kilometres towards the planet Mercury. But all that grinds to a halt when we try to use many of our critical public services. Queue up in A&E, try to get a bed in a hospital, or an appointment with a consultant and you tangle with a system that's hopelessly out of step with the life we live in the 21st century.
In our public life, this Government has failed us. We still pay.
It's time to do better for Ireland by giving our people a new and better government - 21st-century government. One that will get our wealth working for all the people and give them the first-class services, the modern services they deserve.
They deserve dignity in our A&Es. They deserve more beds on our wards. They deserve education to expand our opportunity. They deserve energy to secure our future.
The real challenge for the next government will not only be to get the economy to perform to its peak. The real challenge will be to get our wealth working for all our people.
Because imagine . . . after 10 long years of this calamity coalition, imagine how much better off Ireland would be with a new team, with new energy and new ideas to solve our country's problems? Fine Gael ideas, like a new deal for carers, a break for our commuters, cutting red tape for business, modernising the way we teach our language, realising the wealth of our seas and protecting our costal communities, moving to biofuels in the wake of the sugar beet wipeout, that will give farmers new markets, new opportunities, and allow Ireland to live up to its responsibilities to our people and to our planet. Our new team will build a more equal society. We will put the people first. All the people. Not just privileged insiders.
Because 10 years on, our people deserve better. They deserve an honest, competent government that plans way beyond the next election, all the way to the next generation. Tonight, my message is this: Fine Gael and Labour will be that government. In fact, Fine Gael and Labour are already planning for that future.
Our joint document, The Buck Stops Here, is a blueprint for responsible, ambitious, reforming government. It shows exactly how we'll get Ireland's money working for the people. In every project, performance - not public relations - will be the acid test of funding. Any Minister reckless with the people's money will be fired. I will be straight with the people's money. So let me be equally straight on tax.
We are committed to a real low-tax economy. Therefore, there will be no rise in personal tax. No rise in corporation tax. No rise in capital tax. Because for us, what matters most is how well you manage the tax take.
The problem isn't money. The problem is government complacency, government waste. And the health service is where that complacency is seen and felt most acutely.
It's forcing families into heartbreaking choices. Take their frail, elderly father to A&E, to spend days on a trolley? Or keep him at home, where at least they know he can die with dignity and in comfort? It's creating stories of mothers forced to spend their most precious moments - because they are their last moments - saying their goodbyes, leaving their lives, in a space where nurses take their coffee break.
The Government's response? They argue the toss. One day it's a crisis. The next, it's a national emergency. Whatever soundbite will get them through the day. Fianna Fáil and the PDs are shameless. They brazen it out. And now they want you to give them five more years! Well, Ireland deserves better.
And I have a message for the Taoiseach. I believe that any government of this country that cannot look after the health of its people does not deserve to be in power, and does not deserve to be returned to power. Which is why I want to be crystal clear. I will end the scandal of the A&Es. Starting with these practical solutions.
Get the drunks out of A&E. Put the weekend warriors into drunk tanks. Fine them. Hit them where it hurts, in their pockets.
Set up state-of-the-art urgent care centres; mini A&E units. Staff and equip them with what they need. GPs, practice nurses, X-ray, ultrasound. Everything it takes to deal with minor emergencies. Link them up with transport and communications to the major hospitals. Put 15 of them in our cities and in towns that don't have a hospital. Dublin urgently needs three - two in the northside, one in the southside. Then use benchmarking to shake up any work practice that's holding back our A&Es.
Give free GP care to every child under five - there will be families showing up at casualty. Then focus on prevention. Give every man, every woman a free regular health check to catch the killer and the chronic diseases early - cancer, heart disease, diabetes. We'll save lives, pain and billions of euro.
The Government wants to give public land for private hospitals. I believe that this is wrong. That land is the people's property. The people's asset. Fine Gael will use that public land for public beds. Particularly step-down beds. And particularly in Dublin.
And so to our other national disgrace. Crime. The people are right. Criminals in Ireland are getting away with murder. There is no respect for law and order. Across the country, crime is soaring. Detection rates are falling. So, even tonight, criminals carry on regardless. The likelihood is they'll never be caught. Never be punished.
As a woman said to me this week, "'Enda. I'm part of the hidden Ireland. I'm afraid to open my door now even to the woman from the census."
Our people see the Minister for Justice self-combusting over a perceived slight to his Ministerial manhood. But not over the assaults or the robberies or the murders and the judicial revolving door that are his legacy to this country.
When it comes to law and order, this Government is living in a parallel universe. Ireland deserves better. Enough is enough. I'm calling time on the thugs. And on the balance of the law that seeks to protect them before it first protects the people.
Ireland is losing faith with a legal system whose first priority is to protect the rights of the minority - the criminals. I want to change that system so that its first priority is to protect the rights of the law-abiding people - us, the majority.
For example, in their right to defend their home. Right now, as the law stands, defend your home, defend your family against an intruder, and that intruder can sue you, take you to court. I believe that is wrong and that the law should be changed to protect the homeowner from being sued unreasonably.
And when it comes to sentencing, I want the people to have a voice. As it stands now, before sentencing, the judge will hear from the victim and from the criminal. But that judge hears nothing from the prosecution, who is the people's representative in court. In our courts, the voice of the people is silent
I will change that. I will insist that every time a guilty verdict is handed down in a serious case, the prosecution will stand up and propose, in court, the sentence that reflects the people's view. The judge will hear the voice of the people. And we will therefore re-strike the balance of the criminal justice system in favour of the majority.
I want our judges to be more accountable to the people . . . The Oireachtas should decide the range of sentences, minimum to maximum, to be handed down. And I'll be tough on bail. In the last two years alone, there were 11,000 serious crimes - robbery, rape, murder - committed by offenders out on bail. Out on bail.
There is something seriously wrong here. Therefore I will introduce new legislation to make it tougher for anyone accused of a serious crime to get bail. And if they do get bail, I will authorise that that person be electronically tagged so the gardaí know where they are 24-hours a day, seven days a week. They're tagged; the people are safer. When the law and order party is back in power, the thugs will be out of business.
Tonight I'm proud of how Fine Gael founded our democracy and the institutions of our State. Throughout that proud history, we stood by our democratic principles. We stood by the Republic, we defended the State's institutions against every threat.
Even if there are some who would try to airbrush Fine Gael's huge contribution from our nation's proud, and often volatile, history.
From Michael Collins, through every generation, Fine Gael did what we have always done. What we will always do. We put Ireland first. Just as we put Ireland first on Europe. Fine Gael are passionately European. When other parties looked inward, we looked outward to a continent that said No to war, Yes to peace, Yes to unity.
The next election will be a transforming moment in our nation's history. Ireland will choose between a tired old government that have brought us as far as they can, and a new government that will create an Ireland where our children can rear their children, confident of a bright future.
From the moment I was entrusted with the leadership of this great party, I have worked to build on our traditions. To empower the next generation. To pull together our strengths and our passion for public service, so that we can say to the people without fear or favour: if you want a government of energy and delivery, if you want a government of ethics and honesty, if you want a government that is driven by your dreams, your needs, your rights, then we are that government.