The Progressive Democrats are aiming for 60 councillors, double the party's current number, in this year's local government elections, the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, said yesterday.
She said the PDs hoped to run between 150 and 160 candidates, twice the number they ran on the last occasion. "We'll be very disappointed if we don't have 60 councillors after this election."
Ms Harney also said the ending of the dual mandate was a great help to small parties because for a long time Oireachtas members tended to dominate the local government system, and the operation of local government revolved around those Oireachtas members. "I think that's unsatisfactory. The ending of the dual mandate opens up enormous possibilities for the Progressive Democrats as it does for others."
Ms Harney, speaking on RTÉ radio's This Week, said the most effective way of increasing the party base and creating a national party was to have election candidates right around the State.
Traditionally the PDs tended to concentrate on high-profile candidates in Dáil constituencies and build a base around those candidates but now they wanted to go more national.
What they needed to do was to take the success they had had at national level and put it in place at local level so that they could have, hopefully, a PD representative in every local authority.
"Now, that might be too much to expect at one single election, to go from having 30 councillors to having somebody in every single local authority, but we need to go close to that kind of target, and certainly over time to make sure that the roots of the party are fully bedded down."
Ms Harney said the party wanted to attract into politics people who had an enormous contribution to make to the development of their local community.
There were many people doing fantastic things with voluntary organisations, sporting bodies, and chambers of commerce, and she believed they could do a lot more for their community if they looked at a political option.
"Our democracy and the future of our country and the future of our community and particularly the regions depends on attracting high-quality candidates into the local government system."