The country is in danger of becoming "a one-party State" if Fianna Fáil gets re-elected next year, Fionnuala O'Kelly, the wife of Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, has declared.
Speaking to 400 female Fine Gael supporters at a €100-a-head lunch in the Berkeley Court Hotel in Dublin, she accused Fianna Fail ministers of being "arrogant".
Ms O'Kelly served as head of the Government Information Service for taoiseach Charles Haughey before marrying Mr Kenny in 1992.
"It is really a question of people needing an alternative. It is an inevitable consequence of people being in government too long that they become arrogant," she said.
"If they are questioned in the Dáil, they take it as a slight. We are coming to a time when most senior civil servants cannot remember working for any minister other than a Fianna Fáil one," she told the annual Fine Gael women's lunch.
Fianna Fáil's longevity in power, she said, meant that the media "now has to play along if they want to get access" - particularly those working in broadcasting.
"We see it all the time when Fianna Fáil ministers refuse to debate alongside Fine Gael people. They want to go on on their own," she declared, to loud cheers from the audience.
Though married to the Fine Gael leader, Ms O'Kelly comes from a Fianna Fáil background. She met Mr Kenny during the 1980s when he was a TD and she was a Fianna Fáil press officer. Following the end of Ireland's 1990 EU presidency, Ms O'Kelly stepped down as head of the Government Information Services to take up a post with RTÉ.
In 1995, Finola Bruton, the wife of the then taoiseach John Bruton, caused controversy when she told a women's lunch honouring Hillary Clinton that feminists demonise men.
