The Green Party's annual national convention opens in Galway today focusing on "sleaze and spin".
Mr John Gormley, the party chairman, said the weekend event, with the theme Green Politics - Clean Politics,will focus on what he called "the sleaze and spin of the Fianna Fail/PD Coalition".
He said the party wanted to emphasise that it is now ready for the challenge of government. The party is also using the convention to open its campaign for the local and European Parliament elections in June.
"We will focus on the corrupt practices and incompetence of the present government and the litany of broken promises," Mr Gormley said.
"But we also want to offer real alternatives to the Irish people. We very much see ourselves, now, as a party of government and we would like to emulate the success of many of our European Green counterparts, particularly the German Greens. With that in mind we have invited the co-leader of the German Greens, Reinhard Bütikofer, to address the conference on the success of the German Greens in government."
Mr Gormley said the party was "particularly delighted" that the Green Party conference will, for the first time, be broadcast live.
"It will be an opportunity for our party leader, Trevor Sargent, to set out the party stall and we are confident that this will broaden our appeal to the Irish electorate in the run-up to the local and European elections."
Mr Gormley said the party was confident it could continue the momentum generated by its successful general election in 2002, when the party increased its Dail representation from two TDs to six.
"We have nearly all of our local election candidates selected and our election task force has ensured that the Green Party candidates in the forthcoming elections will be the best prepared ever. We have become more professional, much better at communicating our message nationally and locally, and our candidates are working extremely hard on the ground."
The party will be pushing for the re-election of its MEP in Dublin, Ms Patricia McKenna. It is also hopeful that Carlow-based councillor, Ms Mary White, can retain the seat currently held by Ms Nuala Ahern, who will not contest the elections.
"Both of these candidates, we hope, will retain our European seats. At local level, we hope to double our number of Council seats. From that success we hope to continue our successful party strategy of targeting Dáil seats," Mr Gormley said.