The Green Party has signalled strong enthusiasm for entering government with Fine Gael and Labour as another week of bickering looms between the current Coalition and the possible alternative.
Green Party chairman John Gormley said yesterday that while the Greens would not enter any pre-election pact, their aim was "to rid the country of this discredited Fianna Fáil/PD Coalition".
His comments came as Fine Gael prepared for its annual two-day parliamentary party meeting which will discuss election strategy as well as the health service and the economy.
The PDs will also have a one-day parliamentary party meeting in Dublin tomorrow. Press conferences tomorrow by Enda Kenny and Mary Harney are expected to produce further exchanges.
Mr Gormley said his party had a "clear preference for a coalition involving Fine Gael and Labour". An opinion poll published in yesterday's Sunday Business Post "shows clearly that the Greens are an essential component for any future alternative government", he maintained.
"The Green Party has made it clear that it will not enter a pre-election pact with other parties, while at the same time emphasizing the need to rid the country of this discredited Fianna Fáil/PD Coalition," he said. While the Green Party voted against a pre-election alliance with Fine Gael and Labour at its conference earlier this year, Mr Gormley and party leader Trevor Sargent made it clear in interviews afterwards that their preference was to negotiate a deal for government with those parties after the election.
Mr Gormley's statement yesterday came after a week of bitter political exchanges which further crystallised the choice facing voters in the next general election as one between a Fianna Fáil-led government and one involving Fine Gael and Labour. That election may be more than 18 months away.
Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte continued the row at the weekend, claiming in a speech that Fianna Fáil governments had caused rather that cured Ireland's economic difficulties in the 1980s.
In a further sign that the Green Party's attraction to a Fine Gael-led alternative is reciprocated, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny used an interview in this newspaper at the weekend to highlight his party's concern about issues dear to the Greens such as energy, agriculture and the environment.
Mr Gormley said yesterday that the problems of climate change and of oil production reaching its peak would come more and more to public attention in the coming month and the Green Party would come into its own.
"No other party has spoken as much about these problems, nor offered solutions. This Government is bankrupt of ideas when it comes to the energy crisis and only a government with the Greens at its core can deal with the defining issues of our age."