The Greens are poised to make their long-awaited breakthrough as a party of power and influence in Irish politics if the result of the forthcoming election is anything like the findings of the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi opinion poll, writes Stephen Collins.
The simple fact of the matter is that if the party can hold on to the 8 per cent level of support it achieved in the poll it will be impossible to form a government without them.
With the focus of world attention now focused on climate change and declining energy resources, the timing of the election could not be better from a Greens point of view.
The party's problem now will be to hold on to its newly-won supporters.
As far as the rest of the political system is concerned, forewarned is forearmed, and the Greens will come under much closer scrutiny about what they actually stand for.
So who are the new Green supporters? Broadly speaking, they are middle-class women living in Dublin. The party is particularly attractive to middle-aged women from the ABC1 social class and it also does well among young women from the same social background who are likely to be voting for the first time.
A notable feature of Green support is that women outnumber men by two to one yet the party does not have one woman TD.
Its strength in Dublin, where it has moved ahead of Labour and it has twice the support of Sinn Féin, means that its current five TDs are safe and it should be able to take new seats in the capital. For instance, former Green MEP Patricia McKenna must stand a great chance of taking a seat in Dublin Central rather than current Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou McDonald.
The party does not have many high-profile candidates to capitalise on the extra support but, if the votes are there, new Green TDs will emerge whether or not they are widely known at this stage.
The party is clearly riding the crest of the wave on the basis of growing public concern about issues such as future energy needs, environmental standards and the state of public transport.
However, the solutions it has traditionally advocated to such problems like carbon taxes, restrictions on development and opposition to the building of motorways may take some selling to a prosperous, SUV-driving urban middle-class electorate.
The Greens won six seats in 2002 with just under 4 per cent of the vote, so with 8 per cent it could double its Dáil representation. That would certainly put the party in a pivotal position when it comes to the formation of government.
If the alternative coalition of Fine Gael-Labour has more seats that Fianna Fáil, the Greens would probably have the numbers to push them over the line into office.
On the other hand, if the alternative coalition fails to capture the public imagination, and Fianna Fáil has more seats, then the Greens may have the numbers to put Bertie Ahern back into the Taoiseach's office.
Either way, the Greens have a great chance of putting themselves into the position of being able to negotiate their way into government for the first time on the basis of some of their key policies being implemented.
Party leader Trevor Sargent has said that he will be willing to negotiate a deal with Fine Gael and Labour but not with Fianna Fáil. Yet he hasn't ruled out serving in a Fianna Fáil-Green government under a new party leader. That leaves the party with its options open as the poll figures give Fianna Fáil and the Fine Gael-Labour alternative exactly the same level of support.
The Greens are unlikely to be the only ones with cards to play if Fianna Fáil is ahead of the Fine Gael-Labour alternative.
Sinn Féin is the only other party to gain in the poll, and if it can achieve the 9 per cent rating in the election it could also have the numbers to ensure that Bertie Ahern becomes Taoiseach.
Sinn Féin's problem is that its first preference support is unlikely to translate into seats as easily as the Greens. At the last election it won five seats on 6.5 per cent of the vote, compared with six from the Greens with less than 4 per cent, and eight for the PDs who were also less than 4 per cent.
Still, if the party's first preference total rises significantly some extra seats will inevitably follow.
There will be a serious battle in Dublin between the Greens and Sinn Féin to establish which of them will be in the position of king-maker but at this stage the advantage appears to be with the Greens.
PD leader Michael McDowell has ruled out his party going into a rainbow coalition that involves the Greens or to being in office in a government that depends on Sinn Féin support. He has narrowed the options available to his party in an attempt to concentrate the mind of the electorate on which parties it wants to see forming the next government. So far that strategy appears to have backfired and to have put the Greens in a stronger position.
More seriously, from Mr McDowell's point of view, the slump in PD support to just 1 per cent in the poll is ominous.
There is an apparent contradiction between the drop in PD support and the sustained rise in Mr McDowell's satisfaction rating. However, a breakdown of the figures provides some clues about why that happened.
The reason Mr McDowell's satisfaction rating has risen by 6 per cent is that there has been a 15-point jump in his rating among Fianna Fáil supporters. Conversely his rating with Fine Gael voters has dropped.
By nailing his colours to the Fianna Fáil mast the Tánaiste has alienated voters well disposed to Fine Gael and that in turn has clearly eroded support for his party.