Overview: The Green Party leader has ruled out going into government with Fianna Fáil but has set a target of being in an alternative coalition after the next election.
Mr Trevor Sargent's remarks at the end of his party convention in Galway yesterday appear to commit him to campaigning as part of a Fine Gael/Labour/Green Party alternative government in the next general election. The Fine Gael and Labour leaderships are already committed to such an option.
In his keynote address to party delegates on Saturday night, Mr Sargent outlined his party's determination to move from being a party of protest and opposition to one that wielded ministerial power. He said the Green movement "represents a set of ideas whose time has come".
The party chairman Mr John Gormley echoed Mr Sargent's remarks, saying the Green Party must be seen as an "essential part" of a credible alternative government. If there was no credible alternative, "people may revert to type by the time of the next general election", he warned.
Mr Sargent told The Irish Times later that his party would not serve with Fianna Fáil after the next election. "I have no hesitation in saying we will not put Fianna Fáil back into government," he said.
In his speech he said Fianna Fáil and the PDs "must be put out of office ... We need to rid ourselves of a Government which has become a byword for arrogance, corruption and false promises". As part of this process "Green Party candidates must win and win well, in the local government elections".
He later said he hoped to treble his party's local authority seats in June from its current eight councillors, and to ensure representation throughout the island.
In his speech he identified his party's concerns with those of the "anxious class" who, he said, had done relatively well economically but were faced with many threats and challenges to their quality of life. He said his party was "alive to the new anxieties that pre-occupy parents, mortgage holders, tenants and those who live with job insecurity".
The Green Party would ensure parents had free time and resources in their first few years of parenting and that neighbourhoods were designed in a child-friendly way. The party would also support class sizes of 20 rather than 30 and improve primary health care.
They would establish a right to housing in the Constitution and place a charge on housing land that was undeveloped and zoned in order to reduce land hoarding.
He criticised the approach to immigration taken by the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell who, he said "presides over a system that takes parents and their families from their houses in the middle of the night. These 21st century evictions stir up bitter memories for many Irish people."
He pledged his party would "march again this summer when George Bush comes to town ... and we will unite with the millions of good American people who strongly disapprove of his policies and who do not want our airports used as a launching pad for his illegal war crimes".
While much of his party's platform is seen as appealing to Fine Gael voters, Mr Sargent later said he was also trying to appeal to people who do not vote, as well as to Fianna Fáil voters.