Not before time, the electorate is being presented with an alternative vision of Ireland under the Celtic Tiger and real policies for an alternative coalition, which it may chose to reject or support. The Fine Gael-Labour alternative has been slow to articulate what it would do in government that would be different to the 10-year tenure of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats.
Mr Pat Rabbitte's powerful speech to the Labour Party conference on Saturday will have gone a long way towards breaking him out of the defensive confines of incessant speculation about post-election options. And, it will have done more. He redefined the debate ahead of the coming election. There is a choice of policies facing voters now.
Mr Rabbitte, at his rhetorical best for years, placed in front of voters a five-point list of pledges. The centre-point of his is plan is a 2-percentage point cut in the basic rate of tax, from 20 per cent to 18 per cent over two years apparently, in a curve-ball to wrong-foot those planning to portray Labour as a high-tax party.
Mr Rabbitte's subtext was clear: he will not be fighting the coming election on the negative slogan "get Fianna Fáil out", but a positive "put in a coalition with a new vision". There will, no doubt, be plenty of opportunity to knock what the party sees as a government that has gone adrift.
Mr Rabbitte hopes to tap an aspect of the national mood that does not feel comfortable with the one-dimensional "we've never had it so good" mood of Fianna Fail and the PDs. "Yes we have seen great economic progress, but are you happy?" he asked the voters, then enumerating the many reasons that they may not be content.
Fine Gael, its partner for any alternative, has already come out to support its low-tax proposals. The Government, naturally, is outlining Labour's opposition to a low-tax regime. The relevant questions today, however, are whether Labour's tax reduction proposals have been costed; are they achievable; and, maybe equally relevant to voters when they make their choice, does Labour sign up to the budget proposal to lower the higher tax rate from 41 to 40 per cent in the 2008 budget? Is Labour, supported by Fine Gael, going to resile from this proposal?
For today, however, the outlining of the thinking of Labour in an alternative coalition is to be welcomed. Voters can make up their own minds. For the last number of months, as the election approached with a defined date, there has been no vision of what a Fine Gael/Labour and possibly Green Party had to offer.
Labour can only break from its consistent 11 per cent poll standing if it becomes more than the party of the marginalised. For one thing, the marginalised tend not to vote; for another, the rest, although they may be sympathetic, will ultimately vote where their pocket and experience leads them. Mr Rabbitte presented a vision of a "Fair Society", with echoes of Fine Gael's "Just Society", and provided concrete proposals on which this vision can be judged.