THE Green Party is sleaze-free. That was the central message yesterday as the Greens set in train their election campaign from behind a symbolic pane of glass.
Standing outside Leinster House with 15 of the 26 Green Party candidates, the party's only TD, Mr Trevor Sargent, said the al fresco location illustrated their commitment to "openness and accountability".
He said his party aimed to "put key policies before power" and offered the electorate a clear choice.
"At the moment voters are being asked unfairly to choose between two blocs," he said. "This would be all right if there were a difference between both sides, but the fact is that they are just more of the same."
The Green Party represented the only "alternative choice". It would continue to work to reduce the gap between rich and poor through basic income, tax reform, decentralisation and an end to the dual mandate.
Ms Donna Cooney, a Dublin North East candidate, said her party was the only one to put the environment "at the centre of all their policies".
Moving away from the general view of the Greens as a single-issue party, she said the election would be fought on the issues that affected "everyday life." A child-care policy was a priority, she said, and the introduction of a basic income would give parents more financial freedom.
Asked whether he was confident of winning enough seats to hold the balance of power in the next Dail, Mr Sargent was non-committal, saying he expected a few "surprises" come polling day.
"We are hopeful that we will win the seven seats which will allow us - to be recognised as an official party in the Dail," he said. "I think there are a number of surprises on the horizon and we look forward to them."
Mr Sargent said there was no indication from the mainstream parties that they were prepared to give priority to key Green Party policies. "The Government talked about `greening everything they do' as one of their 21 goals," he said. But, according to Mr Sargent, the Government's idea of "green" was "completely unsustainable".
A former Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mr John Gormley, said the central theme of the Green Party campaign was honesty in politics, with candidates insisting on the disclosure of all donations to politicians.
Mr Gormley then produced a window on which were scrawled "Dunnes Tribunal", "disclosures" and the names of the mainstream parties in red ink.
"John Bruton started out saying that he would govern as though behind a pane of glass," Mr Gormley said. "But as you can see the glass has got a bit clouded." The main objective of the Green Party in the campaign would be to "wipe the glass clean," he said.