Decentralisation: The Green Party would scrap the current decentralisation programme if elected to Government.
Environment spokesman Ciarán Cuffe described the programme as being the "pork-barrel politics of delivering scraps of meat to every Fianna Fáil backbencher in the country".
He added: "It is neither visionary nor practical. It is an expensive and dangerous move that will cost us dearly in future years. Government should be about joined-up thinking, not about 'divide and conquer'."
He said the Green Party favoured the creation of jobs in the regions but said this should be done by devolving powers to regional and local authorities.
"It doesn't make sense to remove Government departments from Dublin if the key decisions are still being made in the Department of Finance in Merrion Street," he said.
Cllr David Healy from Dublin North East said decentralisation of power back to local communities was "a core issue for us in the Greens", and that the current decentralisation programme showed there "was so little understanding" of the concept within Government.
The proposal did face opposition from a small number of delegates, who were concerned about job creation in rural areas.
Ciarán Kinane from Galway called for the party to have a proper debate about the pros and cons of the current decentralisation package before making the decision.
The party also voted in favour of a major reform of the local authority system, to devolve more powers to elected members and provide councils with the ability to raise their own money. Such measures were proposed in a recent Indecon report which also recommended a property tax on second homes, but it was rejected by Government.
Mr Cuffe accused successive governments of eroding the authority of county councils since 1977. "It is not good enough for Dick Roche to tell us that he will make decisions in our best interest. It is not good enough for the civil servants in Dublin to tell us that they will make the best decisions on our behalf. What we want is a revolution in local government."
Cllr Mark Dearey from Louth accused the Government of "dumping" the Indecon report on council funding, leaving a situation where councils were "going cap in hand for every two-bit project". Party deputy leader and Carlow county councillor Mary White said she wanted to see devolution of power to local authorities for people "to have real control over their lives rather than a few jobs thrown their way".
Mr Cuffe also accused Labour leader Pat Rabbitte of playing the "race card" when he suggested recently that work permits for citizens from EU accession states might need to be considered in the future.