THE Green Party is fielding 26 candidates in this election and if a miracle happens five could win Dail seats.
On the other hand, if things go wrong it could be pedded back to a lone representative at Leinster House.
A party whose national support falls within the margin of statistical error in opinion polls always has the capacity to surprise.
The Green Party proved that convincingly in the 1994 elections when it shocked the political establishment by winning two seats out of 15 in the European Parliament.
The political wave which swept the Green Party to victory in those European elections subsequently ebbed and the party fared indifferently in several by- elections.
For the past year or so, Irish Times/MRBI opinion polls have given the party a support base of about 3 per cent. But now it may be having a breakthrough, with 9 per cent support in Dublin.
The party's director of elections, Mary Bowers, is convinced that history will repeat itself and the Green Party will score a Dail triumph.
There was "amazingly positive feedback on the doorsteps", she said. And there was a growing belief that the party would win several Dail seats.
The party had begun to take off in the past week, she said, and the public response was much better than expected.
She listed Cllr Dan Boyle in Cork South Central; outgoing TD Trevor Sargent in Dublin North; Gerry Boland in Dublin South; John Gormley in Dublin South East and Mary White in Carlow/Kilkenny as the party's frontrunners, hut said others could also surprise.
She did not think national opinion polls reflected what was happening in the constituencies. Although the party had only £20,000 to spend nationally on the campaign, it had planned well and focused on its priorities.
Candidates were spending an average of £3,000 on their campaigns but the lack of cash was compensated for by the enthusiasm of voluntary helpers, she said.
If the Green Party's aspirations are met and it increases its Dail representation, it is prepared to horse trade.
Plans have been laid for the appointment of a special five person negotiating team if it should hold or share the balance of power in the Dail. And there is no question of it automatically supporting one coalition grouping over another.
Dick Spring first raised the prospect of the Green Party sharing in a Rainbow alliance at the Labour Party's conference last month. But Trevor Sargent insists that no approaches, either formal or informal, have been made by the Government parties. And he dismisses Mary Harney's comments that his party, along with several Independents, would automatically prop up the Rainbow.
Ms Bowers says the party will negotiate with any grouping in order to get the maximum amount of its policies implemented in government. If the situation arose, a five person negotiating team, composed of TDs and party officers, would be appointed by the national council after the election.
Any government programme arising from those negotiations - with either Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats or with Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Democratic Left - would be put to a special party conference for ratification, she said.
The party's priorities are likely to include: government decentralisation, involving tackling rural depopulation and urban deprivation; tax reform involving a guaranteed basic income and including carbon, consumption, waste and pollution taxes; a referendum on neutrality and on membership of EMU and the adoption of a quality of life index to replace the purely economic measurements of GNP and GDP.
The Green Party is fully mobilised. Although it lacks a formal party leader, new committee structures have been put in place for the election. And its two MEPs, Nuala Ahern and Patricia McKenna, are campaigning on behalf of candidates in the constituencies.
Even if the party does get the wind behind it in the last days of the election campaign, it will still find it extremely difficult to increase its Dail representation.
None of its 26 candidates could be regarded as a "sure thing" and all of them will depend on transfers from other parties to get elected.
But the vibrations are good. In the last two general elections, the party secured 1.5 and 1.4 per cent of the national vote and returned one TD to Leinster House on each occasion. This time, with 3 to 5 per cent support in opinion polls, it could do better.
With opinion polls pointing to an inconclusive result in the battle between the two alternative coalition arrangements, the Green Party could be the pivot on which the next government is formed.
Ms Bowers has a simple wish. "It would be nice," she says, "for Trevor [Sargent] to have company in the Dail. And it looks as if it is going to happen."