The PDs are willing to do business with Fine Gael, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent.
The Progressive Democrats have bristled regularly as Fianna Fáil sold its carefully planned makeover over the past nine months, and transformed its fortunes in the polls. Charlie McCreevy went to Brussels, Fr Seán Healy to Inchydoney, Brian Cowen to finance, and out came new caring Fianna Fáil and socialist Bertie.
A not too hidden implication was that Fianna Fáil was the caring party, and that therefore the Progressive Democrats were somehow less caring. Nobody said so, but Bertie Ahern made sarcastic remarks about "right-wing economists" who weren't to be listened to.
Fianna Fáil went cool on the PD competition agenda in relation to aviation. As the larger party stressed how caring it now was, its ratings rose steadily.
At the weekend Mary Harney responded firmly. "This party doesn't have any time for monopolies and no-one has a monopoly on social justice," she said in her speech.
Bertie Ahern was caring, so too were Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte, she said. "Our politics will continue to be caring, imbued with public service and deeply rooted in our communities," she said.
The name-checking of her fellow "carers" - Bertie, Enda and Pat - was designed to locate the PDs in the mainstream in terms of social concern, rather than on some uncaring right-wing fringe.
But it also gave the clear and deliberate signal that if the numbers and circumstances stack up, they could go into Government with the current main opposition parties as easily as with Fianna Fáil.
Ms Harney acknowledged this explicitly in an interview with The Irish Times yesterday. "We would be as happy to be in a Fine Gael-led government as a Fianna Fáil-led government," she said. It was about policies, not personalities.
As Labour prepares for a difficult debate next month on whether to close off the option of going into government with the State's largest party, they must envy this niche party whose driving aim of being in Government and influencing policy is so accepted that nobody accuses them of having an "each-way bet" when they leave all options open.
This independence of action has been earned through their ability to be seen as standing for something coherent, recognisable and understandable.
Marking its 20th anniversary at the weekend, the party spent some time congratulating itself on its role in creating Ireland's low tax society, creating the Personal Injuries Assessment Board and sticking it to the Provos. But in her speech Ms Harney said health reform was the party's next major project, equal in ambition to the transformation of the State's tax regime.
"Our ambition as a party is to have as much positive impact on health as we've had on politics, on jobs and on taxes," she said. "This is the new project. It's a big task, and we're determined to achieve it."
She brushed aside the series of mini-crises that have erupted in her chosen Department to insist that the transformation of Health was possible.
By volunteering for the health portfolio last year, Ms Harney ensured that it is on this issue more than any other that she will be judged at the next election.
Highlighting her intention to seek private capital to build hospitals, she wondered why Irish private investment should be pouring into property schemes abroad while hospitals remained unbuilt.
While €2.5 billion was set aside for health capital spending over the next five years, this could be absorbed quickly. The children's hospital in Crumlin needed to be replaced, she said, but there was a major question mark over how quickly this could be done in the absence of additional private funding.
She listed the slowness in spreading radiotherapy services around the State; the difficulties in getting doctors to agree to operate the new GP-only medical cards; waiting lists; and the inadequacy of long-term care as among the seemingly intractable problems.
She said it was on A&E efficiency that the party's impact on the health services would be judged, and listed a series of initiatives to open step-down beds and high-dependency beds to get patients who do not need to be in acute hospitals out of those hospitals. She said she expected to see results next autumn and winter.
It's a bold prediction, but she will win huge kudos if it turns out to be an accurate one.
The party sent out other messages to try to define itself too. The big luminous Tricolour over the speakers' podium was Michael McDowell's idea. It looked slightly odd, indeed garish, in the hall.
In photographs and on television, however, it provided a striking image.
They did it at last year's Limerick conference too, and on Saturday morning in Cork the PDs circulated the speech made by Mr McDowell on that occasion, in case we had forgotten. A year ago he had asserted that "household names" were on the IRA Army Council; that the IRA was "an elaborate organised crime network"; that it believed it was the lawful government of the Republic; and that it controlled Sinn Féin.
This year, in the wake of the Northern Bank robbery, the uncovering of a major money-laundering operation alleged to be linked to the IRA and the murder of Robert McCartney, he stopped short of saying "I told you so". But only just.
Small parties need to define themselves clearly in the public eye if they are not to be overwhelmed by numerically larger political forces.
Mr McDowell's campaign on this issue - aided by his appropriation of the Tricolour to make his point - is a major contribution to his party's success in this regard.
Over the weekend the party defined differences with the Government too. They called for a review of the commitment to introduce e-voting, rather than simply the review of the particular system chosen which is currently underway. This does not make it party policy - the issue must now go the party's general council - but it grabs some attention.
In her Saturday night speech, Ms Harney also called for competition at Dublin Airport, something to which the Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil do not appear to be committed.
Party spokesman Tom Morrissey called specifically for the independent second terminal at Dublin Airport, which Ryanair and the PDs want, and the unions and Fianna Fáil do not. Reports that the matter will be discussed at Cabinet tomorrow are premature.
There are still probably two years to go before the next general election. The weekend conference was relatively low key. But if Ms Harney succeeds in her ambitious plans for health, expect next year's event to launch loudly a long campaign for a third consecutive term in Government - with whoever will do business with them.