The Green Party has voted by an overwhelming majority to rule out a pre-election pact with Fine Gael and Labour, opting to consider negotiations with others only after a general election.
However, while saying he was happy with the outcome of the vote, the Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said last night that he personally would not go into government with Fianna Fáil.
The motion easily received the two-thirds majority required to make it binding, and this policy can only be overturned now by another conference vote. Sources on both sides of the debate, including Mr Sargent, said yesterday that a change in this policy was unlikely due to the size of Saturday's majority.
With close to 150 people in the hall, fewer than 20 people voted against the motion committing the party to fight the next election independently. "Only after the election will it open negotiations with other parties with regard to the possibility of entering Government", the successful motion says.
The overwhelming approval of this motion meant an alternative fell, proposed by the party's Oireachtas group and leaving open the prospect of a pre-election pact. Although this motion was proposed by the Oireachtas group, only one TD, Eamon Ryan, spoke in favour of it, with deputies Dan Boyle and Paul Gogarty speaking against.
The conference agreed to extend the party leader's standard term of office to five years rather than the current two, with an option to re-elect the leader for further five-year terms. There must also be a leadership election within six months of each general election.
Delegates rejected a proposal to elect two "co-leaders" rather than one leader as at present. The change is seen as strengthening the party's leadership and bringing the Greens more in line with practice in other parties.
A motion that would have committed the party to making the ending of military stopovers at Shannon airport a precondition for entering government failed to win the two-thirds majority required. A motion that would have committed the party to making policy to legalise assisted suicide was withdrawn.
Mr Sargent yesterday attributed the party's rejection of a pre-election pact to his members feeling "pissed off" that others in the political arena were taking their participation in such a pact for granted.
"The Green Party have been effectively pissed off with an awful lot of the speculation that was going on," he told the TV3 programme The Political Party.
"There was a sense of anger among many of the delegates. They wanted to take hold of where the party was in relation to the next election and they are very clear that it is a matter between the electorate and the Green Party."