PREPARE YOURSELF FOR the Labour onslaught – the party plans to launch a plan for a different area of policy “almost every day” between now and the election.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore told the launch of the party’s general election campaign launch at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin this morning that he believed the election would be fought between just three parties: Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour.  But he added:

For the first time ever in the 90-year history of this State, we can elect a Government which is led by neither Fianna Fail nor Fine Gael. For the first time people have a choice – to elect a Government led by Labour.

As with his speech on the last day of the 30th Dail yesterday, Gilmore claimed that Fianna Fail had “failed” Ireland and that Fine Gael was a party that is “comfortable” with the austerity measures on the country.

Despite these pops at his rival politicians, Gilmore said that “this is not the time for division, for divided parties, or a divided country”. Instead, he said he had a vision “One Ireland”:

Public sector and private sector. Those with jobs and those looking for work. Employers and employees. Rural and urban. Gay and straight. Now is the time to pull down the walls that stand between the people and this Government.

The main platforms Labour will be running on are the issues of job creation, “reform and fairness”.