Analysis:The omens for the Greens are netter than they have ever been, writes Mark Hennessey.
In a hotel on the edge of Galway Bay, hundreds of Green Party members gathered and smelt the ozone, tinged by the attractive aroma of political power.
The heady atmosphere has led to much internal debate within the party's ranks about what it would do if it wins.
However, the Greens have yet to debate what they would lose if they opt to become a party of government, with all the frequently grubby compromises that come with real political life, regardless of whether it is practised by saints or sinners.
For over two decades, the Greens have ploughed a lonely furrow, emphasising the need to live simply, in tune with nature, while warning of the damage being done to the planet by rapacious industrialisation.
For most of that time, their message has been on the periphery of Irish politics, often ignored, occasionally sneered at, rarely taken seriously.
However, the world is changing. Climate change is bringing home to people the need for action, while fears about oil supplies are growing.
Nevertheless, the Greens exist in the Land of the Celtic Tiger, where houses and cars are getting more expensive, bigger and more polluting, and where several holidays a year have become the norm for many voters.
In his speech on Saturday night, party leader Trevor Sargent stressed the easily sellable parts of the Greens' message: better-built housing, better education, and renewable energy. So far, so much motherhood and apple pie.
However, there are elements to the Greens' agenda, while entirely consistent from their point of view, that will be more difficult to sell to the public, particularly on transport.
While the Greens' argument in favour of Luas lines for Galway and Cork, the reopening of the Western Corridor line, more buses everywhere, will be popular, there may be less support for the other side of this policy: that the money to fund such projects should come from the motorways building programme.
The appetite for motorways, in the Greens' eyes, will lessen once the public has been converted to cheap, reliable public transport - even though our housing patterns make such systems difficult to operate.
Equally, the Greens' proposal to impose a €20 levy on carbon emissions which would be felt on fuel pump prices, and throughout the supply chain, would be electorally unpopular.
Under the cautious command of Dan Boyle, the Greens will be hard to catch offside on the rest of their economic agenda, one that is deliberately designed to withstand efforts to portray them as reckless.
Three months out, the omens for the Greens are better than they have ever been: poll figures are positive, and, even more importantly, steady.
In 2002, the Greens won six seats with just four percentage points of the first preference, helped by their ability to attract transfers. Consolidation - the first task of any party - seems likely, while the party is in with a significant chance in a number of constituencies.
In Galway West, Niall Ó Brolcháin, currently the city's mayor, is pushing hard, though the constituency is one that is always fiercely contested.
In Carlow/Kilkenny, the party's deputy leader, Mary White, is helped by Labour's Seamus Pattison's decision to retire, while the landscape in Dublin South Central has been opened up by the decision of Fine Gael's Gay Mitchell not to run, offering opportunities to Tony McDermott. But there are a few areas where they have to do better, and fast.
Perhaps the least-known party leader, Trevor Sargent has worked quietly to put a structure on an organisation that for long resisted structures.
His very position as leader, and the trust which he so clearly enjoys, is in itself a tribute to the exercise of his quiet, diplomatic skills.
However, his lack of TV presentational skills was cruelly exposed on Saturday night in an age where politicians have but seconds to keep viewers from hitting the remote control.
Quite simply, the speech was well crafted, understandable, visionary in parts, but the delivery was simply awful.
The public does not pay attention to politics often.
Sargent must not make the same mistakes again.