A party prepared to forsake power to have policies implemented

BERTIE AHERN might be well advised to dust down the saddle of his bicycle in a few days' time. Or borrow a horse from his former party leader.

John Bruton, please copy. For if it does hold the balance of power in a week, the Green Party is adamant. "You call us, we won't call you," is the message from its candidates, several of whom could take seats in the next Dail.

Trevor Sargent TD as Minister for Sustainable Development, or Transport and Energy, or Marine? "Possible portfolios," he says. "But we are policy driven. We'd forsake power and success if some of our ideas could be taken on board," Ms Mary White, the Green Party candidate for Carlow/Kilkenny insists.

The party could have several options in such a situation, including active opposition or support for a minority administration. No formal approaches have been made yet, and the party will await the outcome of the election before naming its negotiating team.

Economic reform, including a guaranteed basic income and a tax on consumption, a waste management strategy, decentralisation and referendums on membership of EMU and neutrality are among the party's policy priorities. However, certain issues are nonnegotiable.

"If an incinerator was to be built here, we'd have to pull out," says Trevor Sargent, outgoing TD for Dublin North and party spokesman on the marine. He recently referred to policies pursued by Government and opposition parties as "the economics of cancer".

The party has already proposed splitting the existing Department of the Environment in two, to form a Department of Sustainable Development and a Department of the Community. The former would pursue a waste management strategy based on reuse and recycling. "To the point where landfill would barely be needed in a country this size," says Mr Sargent. The latter would address the causes of crime.

At the same time, the party is not against zero tolerance. "Particularly zero tolerance of white collar crime," he adds. The Greens would seek a shift in the tax burden away from income to consumption, and provision of additional indicators for GNP and GDP to ensure that factors like crime, health and environmental disaster were not rated as "bonuses".

It would like to see a phasing in of the basic income scheme formulated by the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI), along with a range of environmental taxes on water pollution, energy use and carbon content. Such taxes could yield an estimated extra £500 million revenue a year.

Decentralisation is dear to Green Party hearts, says John Gormley, candidate in Dublin South East. "We've all been councillors and we have all experienced the frustration of powerlessness."

Gerry Boland, the party's environmental spokesman and candidate for Dublin South, is loath to pick out key areas when the policy document is a package.

Traffic is a particular priority in his constituency, however. "There would have to be a radical shift away from private to public transport." His concern for animal welfare extends to a commitment to ending live exports. He also singles out a 50 per cent reduction in the use of pesticides by the year 2000.

Dan Boyle, candidate in Cork South Central, said two months ago that de Valera's Ireland was "dead and gone" and "with the core values of Fianna Fail in the grave". The party's insistence on referendums on neutrality and EMU would force a badly needed debate, he says.

Food safety and agriculture are areas that Mary White would not compromise on if elected for Carlow/Kilkenny. Like her colleagues, she would like to see the closure of Sellafield, and she is also concerned with water pollution and the survival of the salmon.

If there is one certainty, it is that the party will talk in spite of obvious difficulties on economics - with the Progressive Democrats, John Gormley says. A final decision would not rest with the negotiating group, but with the party membership as a whole. In the meantime, prospective negotiators would do well to root out a bit of bedtime reading material, the candidates say, such as The Growth Illusion by Richard Douthwaite.