DUBLIN, Ireland - Ireland's government braced itself for a heavy defeat Friday as voters went to the polls enraged about public service cuts, higher taxes, soaring unemployment and the country's embarrassing bailout.
The opposition Fine Gael party has enjoyed a wide lead in opinion polls during a campaign dominated by debate on how to rebuild an economy brought low by the collapse of a property boom, which in turn led to a bailout of Ireland's banks. Unemployment has soared to more than 13 per cent.
The opposition has used Ireland's dire economic situation as a rallying call for change -- Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, 60, campaigned in northwestern Ireland on Thursday, urging voters to "turn your anger into action."
The governing Fianna Fail party is bracing for a rout. It led the government through Ireland's boom years in 1994-2007 and into the economic meltdown that precipitated a humiliating bailout from the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
In his final appeal on Thursday, Kenny spoke of a nation "reeling from the national confidence trick pulled on us by the government and those they ceded power to: developers and banks. Every week, a thousand mothers and fathers watch their children pack up their lives, put their degrees in beside their dollars and their bitter disappointment and head for Sydney, Brisbane and Vancouver."
"I'm asking people to turn their anger into action and vote with their power, vote with their pride, vote for our plan -- the only plan -- that will get Ireland working," Kenny said.
The Labour Party hoped to pile up enough votes to deny Fine Gael an outright majority in the Dail, the lower house of Parliament, and secure Labour a place in a coalition government.
That pitch appealed to Mark Fortune, a civil servant who fear Fine Gael's plans to cut 20,000 public service jobs.
"I think Labour would hold them back a bit," Fortune said.
Margaret Leehy, a young nurse, wanted to vote for Fine Gael but she was far away from the constituency in Cork where she is registered.
"I think they are the best of a bad lot," she said, adding that she and her husband are both working full time to make ends meet.
Ireland's plight has inspired a lively contest with a record 566 candidates including 179 independents for the 166 seats in Ireland's lower house in parliament, the Dail. Nearly 49,000 people have rushed to register to vote in recent weeks.
Opinion polls suggest that Ireland's 3.1 million voters will usher in a new government led Fine Gael party, which until now has been the perennial runner-up to Fianna Fail.
