THE Tanaiste and leader of the Labour Party, Mr Spring, said yesterday he was not ruling out the possibility of an autumn election, to be held after the Budget on October 28th. The date of the poll, he said, would be decided within the next few weeks.
Mr Spring was speaking after the Labour Party selection convention in Clare, at which Ms Bridin Twist (48), the national president of the Irish Country women's Association since 1994, was chosen to contest the seat.
Dr Moosajee Bhamjee, the sitting Labour deputy, who won the seat unexpectedly for the party at the last election, has decided for professional reasons not to go forward again.
Mr Spring said that a plan by Fianna Fail to target at least five extra Dail seats in the greater Dublin area was a "panic measure" in reaction to last week's Irish Times/MRBI poll which showed an eight point drop in support for the party in Dublin.
The Tanaiste was confident that Labour would hold its Dail representation in the Dublin area, where he said it had solidified its position, but admitted that the party could drop the seat in Dublin South West currently held by Mr Mervyn Taylor, who is retiring, from politics. He described Mr Taylor as having "put a new stamp on Irish politics".
Asked if he was definitely ruling; out coalition with Fianna Fail following the elections, he said: "I do not see this as a possibility. I will be outlining to the party conference in Limerick next week the significant realities. The present coalition as a Government has worked very well, and we have had enormous records of success and we are going to put this before the electorate. I am a believer in the old adage if it is working, don't fix it, and it is working in this case."
Mr Spring criticised the PD leader, Ms Mary Harney, for her "hyperbole" in relation to her criticism of the distribution of Lottery funds.
He said her criticism was full of inconsistencies and that Ms Harney herself was a member of the all party Oireachtas Committee which in 1989 found Lottery funding should continue to be allotted by the Government.
This week, he said, we had seen the spectacle of the PDs "arriving at a new definition of political honesty". This was, he said, when "you pluck a whole series of figures out of the air and invent totally new costs. It's when you say that water tax is fair and equitable, but property and wealth taxes are evil and unfair."