Greens' party meeting: The Green Party's five TDs and two MEPs will this weekend prepare a strategy they hope will win them between 30 and 50 local authority seats next year.
Meeting in Rosslare, the Green parliamentary party will discuss policy changes and organisational reform that it hopes will transform its representation on local authorities where it currently has just seven councillors.
It has selected 120 candidates to run in next year's local elections.
Speaking at the opening of the party meeting yesterday, the leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, said the Government should honour its benchmarking agreement with public service unions.
However, he accused the Government of having squandered the economic boom of recent years, leaving citizens with under-resourced health and education services.
The Green Party's task for the forthcoming Dáil session was "to expose the Fianna Fáil-PD Coalition Government for the short-term confidence tricksters that they are.
"The effect which the Government has had on Irish society is an abuse of trust in politics and politicians, a widening of the poverty gap in Irish society causing relative income poverty to rise from 15.6 per cent to 22.1 per cent between 1994 and 2000 and a squandering of the energy needs for the next generation," he said.
"As soon as they got back into power they introduced a raft of stealth taxes. People are not fooled by the Government's play on words. They know they have been conned and they don't like it."
He said that the two-day party meeting was an opportunity to decide on strategy in the Dáil and European Parliament.
"Up for consideration will be policies to create equal access to housing, healthcare and education - policies to make easier the transition from a scarce oil-based economy to one that can thrive on indigenous renewable energy," Mr Sargent said.
"We will also be highlighting the green job-creation potential for energy conservation, recycling, wind, wave and solar power as well as organic food production.
"We are determined to champion the cause of the indigenous small to medium-sized business and farming sector."