Political parties have been holding their final news conferences today ahead of Friday's elections.
The Minister for the Environment, Martin Cullen, has denied that his party's vote in the local elections is set to slump drastically on Friday.
Mr Cullen also rejected a claim from the Labour Party that the main issue on the doorsteps was corruption and abuse of Government powers.
The Tánaiste, Mary Harney, said the Progressive Democrats would be 'extraordinarily disappointed' if they do not double their current total of 32 local authority seats in Friday's elections.
Ms Harney said that her councillors would not enter into any alliance with Sinn Féin at local level.
Ms Harney criticised other parties who would agree such deals, saying it was inconsistent to have one position at local level and another nationally.
Earlier, the main opposition parties claimed they would hold their seats and Fianna Fáil would slump.
FG to hold local seat tally: Kenny
The Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, predicted that his party would hold its current tally of over 270 local authority seats after Friday's election.
Mr Kenny said his message to the voters was that this was the first chance since 2002 to do something positive with their vote.
Mr Kenny said there was serious dissatisfaction with the current Government over broken promises, arrogance and incompetence.
The Labour leader, Pat Rabbitte, said people were crying out for a change of government.
Mr Rabbitte said the Labour Party's objective in the local elections was to bring forward candidates who would win seats in the General Election.
Predicting a 'hammering' for Fianna Fáil, Mr Rabbitte said the party's share of the vote could slump from its current level of 40% to the low 30s, and that would represent the worst result for the party since the 1930s.
