In a major departure from the stance of his predecessor Mary Harney, McDowell emphatically said his party was "not going to prop up a failed slump coalition".

Mary Harney had previously said the PDs were open to being in government with Fine Gael and Labour if agreement could be reached on tax and economic policies.

In an interview in today's Sunday Tribune, McDowell said Fine Gael and Labour had "made their bed, let them lie on it. They handcuffed themselves together. And I'm not going to offer any Fine Gael voter the solace that while they have a pact with Labour, that I'm going to try and rescue them from the folly of the decision that Enda Kenny has made for them."

Noting that Kenny and Labour leader Pat Rabbitte had indicated they would prefer to have the Greens as supporters than the PDs, the Tanaiste said: "That degree of ideological and political hostility carries with it certain consequences. . . Pat Rabbitte and Enda Kenny and Trevor Sargent, as a combination, is what they are offering the electorate and, as far as I'm concerned, let the electorate make their choice on it.

"I'm very confident that they'll be decisively rejected; that they will be really hammered by the electorate, " he said.

Asked what would happen if the numbers pointed to the PDs potentially entering such a government after the election, he said he wanted to be "very clear" that he was "not interested in joining a rainbow coalition".

Asked whether it was a case of "Fianna Fail or bust" for the PDs, McDowell responded:

"I wouldn't use that phrase, but what I'm saying is: we're standing on our own and we are not going to prop up a failed slump coalition. And we don't think that our presence in it would rescue it from being a failed slump coalition. It would be a disaster for the Irish people . . . a Labour/Fine Gael/Green arrangement . . .

and we're not going to hold out to the Irish people the prospect that it could be improved by adding us in. That would be very, very . . . how would I put it . . . politically twofaced to do that".

On the issues of drugs and gun crime, McDowell said he "very strongly" believed they were as "much a threat to our way of life today as paramilitarism was 10 to 15 years ago."

But he added that the country was "not going to succumb to a group of thugs" and "whatever has to be done, will be done" to deal with them through the processes of the law.

The Tanaiste also expressed "huge reservations" about the length of time tribunals are taking. Stressing that he was criticising the system, not the tribunal members, he said the cost of tribunals could reach "up to a billion in the end".