The challenge facing Fine Gael is to convince voters of the need for change, writes political correspondent Stephen Collins.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny delivered a stirring rallying call to the party faithful in his ardfheis speech in the City West Hotel in Dublin on Saturday night and managed to generate such enthusiasm that the 4,000 or so delegates rose to give him a standing ovation before he had quite finished his address. If the fervour of members was enough to win an election, Fine Gael would be on the way back to power. However, it is not as simple as that.
Enda Kenny has done a remarkable job over the past four years in pulling Fine Gael back from the brink of oblivion. But since the beginning of this year, the comeback has appeared to falter.
The opinion polls have been giving mixed signals and the party's performance in the Dáil has lacked both fire and consistency.
The challenge facing Mr Kenny at the weekend was to enthuse his members and to convince the voters that Fine Gael and Labour can do a better job in Government than the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat coalition. He certainly succeeded in his first objective but only time will tell whether he made any progress on the second.
With the economy in such buoyant shape and the SSIA money still to come, Mr Kenny focused on three areas where the Government could be vulnerable.
The issues he identified were health, crime and the waste of taxpayers' money. On health he came up with some concrete proposals to complement the ritual attacks on the Government. On crime he reverted to the traditional Fine Gael line on law and order which certainly had the troops whooping in the aisles, although it did discomfort the lawyers in the audience.
On waste of money, he repeated the message of a slick video presentation that preceded his speech which highlighted a succession of ministerial gaffes with the theme music of Send in the Clowns.
It was all designed to put Fine Gael back on the political offensive. One of the reasons for the current slide in support, as shown in the polls, is that Fine Gael has not been catching the Government out on issues like waste of public money in the way that yielded such good results in 2005.
The problem for Mr Kenny is that it is impossible to keep the same level of pressure on the Government day in, day out. Over the course of five years, ups and downs are inevitable.
Fine Gael will need to win close to 28 per cent of the vote next year to be in with a chance of forming a government with Labour. The most recent poll left the party a long way short, on 22 per cent, but one of the difficulties it faces is that Fine Gael never seems to get the level of support in opinion polls that it does in actual elections.
In one of the warm-up speeches before the leader's address, the party's impressive director of elections, Frank Flannery, gave the audience a little speech on how the polls always get it wrong about Fine Gael. He told them that not only would the party do far better than the current polls suggest but that it was in with a realistic chance of getting as many seats as Fianna Fáil. Few outside the party believe that will happen but it was just what the ardfheis audience wanted to hear.
If it is to make real gains Fine Gael will have to convince a significant segment of the electorate that it can do a better job than Fianna Fáil. The alliance with Labour shows that there is an alternative government on offer; the challenge is to demonstrate that such a government can improve the lives of the voters.
The problem over the past six months or so is that some of the positions taken in the Dáil by Fine Gael and Labour have undermined the credibility of both parties as a potential alternative government. The hysterical criticism of Noel Dempsey's Sea Fisheries Bill was just one example of opposition for opposition's sake which did not say much for the capacity of Fine Gael or Labour to take the responsibility of government.
A positive aspect of the ardfheis was that the party offered some alternative policies rather than simply spending its time denouncing the Government. On the contentious issue of health, which Fine Gael clearly believes will be critical to the outcome of the election, party spokesman Dr Liam Twomey did more than just blame Mary Harney for all the faults of our accident and emergency system. He faced up to the need for radical changes in work practices in hospitals to ensure required medical staff are on duty at all times.
Dr Twomey gained credibility for his other policy suggestions involving 24-hour urgent care centres and 600 step-down beds in the greater Dublin area. He made the obvious suggestion that such changes should be required as part of the benchmarking process, something the Government failed dismally to do during the talks on the issue.
Crime was the other big issue highlighted at the ardfheis. Fine Gael returned to its law and order roots as Mr Kenny talked tough on bail, on criminals, and attacked not only Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, but the courts. He gave the judges a lecture about listening to the public rather than the criminals, imposing sentences that reflected the seriousness of crimes, and implementing the people's will on the issue of bail.
Health and crime are clearly the two big issues being raised on the doorsteps and in focus group research and the party is trying to tap into the electorate's mood. That mood is dependant on so many factors as the party candidates know.
Brody Sweeney, a first-time candidate in Dublin North East, expressed his astonishment at how many people want to talk about micro local issues, like dog excrement on the pavement, rather than the bigger issues facing the country.
Fine Gael knows that coming up with serious policies is one of the ways of winning the election.
So much will depend on the mood at the time the election is held. Fianna Fáil is confident that the continuing economic boom and the flow of SSIA money will make the Government unbeatable. The Opposition parties will certainly find it hard to argue with the notion that people have never had it so good.
The question is whether the electorate can be persuaded that somebody else can do it better. Fine Gael and Labour are promising better public services and less waste of public money.
"Change for the Better" was the theme at the Fine Gael ardfheis. Convincing voters of the need for change is the challenge ahead.