In spite of reservations about what it termed the "sectarian" nature of structures built into the proposed Northern assembly, the Green Party has called for a Yes vote in the referendum on the Belfast Agreement.
Starting the party's campaign in Dublin yesterday Mr Trevor Sargent TD said the agreement contained balanced constitutional change in terms of Articles 2 and 3 and the Government of Ireland Act.
It was disappointing that the voting system did not involve proportional representation with the single transferable vote, with a "topping up system", to allow representation of smaller groups like the Women's Coalition.
The paramilitary organisations had to accept that decommissioning - which must be handled extremely sensitively - was "an obvious quid pro quo for the release of prisoners.
"The IRA can't say `we won't have decommissioning but we want our soldiers back'", Mr Sargent added. The electorate's choice was basic - to vote Yes and compromise or refuse to compromise and "continue to wage war ".
Mr Peter Doran, the party's Northern Ireland vice-chairman, said escape from sectarianism in the North would not be complete with the new political arrangements as proposed.
"Due to the narrow and self-interested efforts of the dominant political parties, notably the Alliance Party, the voting mechanisms will for the most part institutionalise the power of the nationalist and unionist parties and their respective ideological attachment to nation-statism," Mr Doran said.
Despite this, the Green Party believed a Yes vote was required on May 22nd. In voting Yes the electorate would not only embrace new political structures and opportunities but would set its face against the squalid politics of the "ethnic entrepreneurs" who had lived off sectarianism.