The Labour leader Eamon Gilmore says he is not confident that the government will survive until Christmas.
Speaking at the launch of the new sports policy by his party Mr. Gilmore also rubbished newspaper reports suggesting that if Brian Cowen were to resign as Taoiseach Labour would consider entering coalition with Fianna Fail.
Labour has already begun canvassing for the next election and Eamon Gilmore says he believes polling may even come before Christmas.
“I’ve no doubt that they will want to continue through to Christmas” he said.
“There are the issues of the 3 outstanding by-elections; there were a number of occasions over the course of the last number of months where votes in the Dail were very close”.
“You’d want to be very brave now to predict that they would survive” he added.
But Health Minister Mary Harney does not believe the prediction by Deputy Gilmore.
“Well I think that prediction as made when the coalition was put together in 2007″ she said.
“In fact, if I go back to 1997 I think there were predictions that that coalition wouldn’t last long”.
“So I think the government is stable, I think the government is determined and committed to run the full course”.
“Certainly our focus is on returning the country to economic growth and that is the priority” she added.
