Green Party leader John Gormley tonight called on the main political parties to work together to solve the economic crisis.
The Minister for the Environment said it was too soon to call for a national government but said the Opposition should join the Government to draft a four-year budget plan.
"I think the situation is now so grave that it's absolutely incumbent on all of the political parties - despite their political differences - to come together," he said.
Mr Gormley claimed the European Commission and global money markets want opposition parties to open talks with the Coalition on plans to secure more than €3 billion in the forthcoming budget.
He said there should be no pre-conditions for negotiations on Budget 2011 and the austerity plan for the following three years.
"There's no blank cheque and I'm from a party which has specialised in consensus over the years and we believe that some of form national consensus is now required," he said.
But Fine Gael finance spokesman Michael Noonan said today his party could not give its support to the Government's planned austerity measures as it did not know what they were.
He said Government's appeals to the Opposition to support its "proposed fiscal correction" would be comical if the country was not in such "dire straits".
"It is currently impossible for Fine Gael to support the Government's fiscal plans because nobody knows what these plans are," the party's finance spokesman said.
Fine Gael has ruled out a joint approach with the Government to the budget deficit similiar to the Tallaght II strategy entered into in the 1980s. However, it has said it would willing to accept strong budget targets but not necessarily the measures put forward to achieve them.
But Mr Noonan said the Government has so far given no indication of what budgetary adjustment it intends making on budget day, "much less its plans for the next four years, or if they are seeking a longer period of adjustment".
"So what proposals of the Government are Fine Gael being asked to agree? The Government has proposed nothing so there is nothing, at this stage, with which we can agree," he said.
The Opposition parties have accepted a Government offer of briefings by a senior official on budget options but insisted they will not be tied in to the targets set by the Coalition.
"We welcome the offer of assistance from the Department of Finance to provide us with the necessary data to come to other decisions on the budgetary profiles," Mr Noonan said.
"Much has been made of the reference in the statement by [rating agency] Fitch that broad based political support would help strengthen the credibility of the medium term fiscal consolidation effort."
"Fitch is correct. They know that the Government are on their last legs," Mr Noonan said.
"They expect that the next government will be a Fine Gael/Labour government and they want to know that the fiscal consolidation will continue.
"Of course it will, and they need have no concern about broad based political support for the consolidation," he added.
Telecoms tycoon Denis O’Brien has also publicly called for a united front from political parties to steer Ireland out of its financial mess.