ANNOUNCING his plans to boost Labour's support at the polls, the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, has indicated that his "preference" date for the next general election would be November 1997.

Speaking at a press conference in Dublin yesterday following a joint meeting of his Parliamentary Labour Party and the Executive Committee, Mr Spring said that while he had not discussed a general election date with the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, his expectation at this juncture is that it would be "most likely at the end of 1997".

The Labour Party leader also flatly rejected suggestions that the resignation of his key adviser, Mr Fergus Finlay, from the Department of Foreign Affairs, to take up the role of "political director" of the party, is an act of desperation to stave off electoral disaster.

Mr Finlay, who has acted as programme manager or special adviser to Mr Spring since he became Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1992, takes up his new post today - less than 24 hours after the transfer was publicly confirmed. He will now be based in the party's head office in Ely Place and will hold overall responsibility for communications research and policy development.

He will not be replaced in the Department of Foreign Affairs but will be available in a personal capacity to advise Mr Spring on issues concerning Foreign Affairs.

Denying there was any link between Mr Finlay's move and his recent comments that the all party talks in Northern Ireland would not be worth "a penny candle" without Sinn Fein participation, the Tanaiste said he had "no doubt that political opponents" might try to portray a connection between the two events. The move had been decided before Mr Finlay made his comments on television, Mr Spring added.

Emphasising that Mr Finlay's deployment was "not a panic move", the Tanaiste added that "it had been planned for a considerable period of time." He said: "A degree and amount of consideration went into it. It is pragmatic planning for the Labour Party."

Earlier, at the joint meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Executive Committee - where he outlined a strategy for the next 12 months, Mr Spring said that the new political director would act as a "bridge between the party in government and the party at large, helping to devise strategies for growth".

Mr Finlay's full time involvement with the party was one of a number of structural changes announced by Mr Spring at yesterday's meeting. The Labour leader had promised a blueprint for the revival of the party's fortunes in the wake of a very poor showing in last month's by elections.

He received agreement from his parliamentary party to form a Strategy Committee, "representative of the party as a whole", to work with the political director. The Environment Minister, Mr Howlin, would chair the committee, and one of the first tasks would be to "devise a work programme for Ministers and Ministers of State to maximise their involvement in party and constituency work over the next 12 months".

Mr Spring also stated that the party would hold four regional consultative conferences - next September, October, November and January. The new Strategy Committee, along with the chairman of the party's Policy Commission, Mr Joe Costello, will develop a "programme" for election which will be placed before the next national conference in spring 1997.

Asked if he intended to abolish the contentious Residential Property Tax, Mr Spring said it was too early to say. A number of controversial issues were "looming large" on the political horizon. These included service charges, property tax and personal income tax.

The Labour press conference was told by the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, that while the next Budget would take place in January, 1997, a second Budget would be unveiled in mid November. But for Ireland's taking over the EU presidency, the practice of two Budgets per year would have been introduced in 1996 to bring Ireland into line with the rest of Europe in terms of "normal accounting practice".