Talks between Fianna Fáil and the Green Party on forming a coalition will enter their fifth and crucial day today, following a declaration by the Greens that the negotiations must end by this evening.
The talks in Government Buildings, which began at 2pm, continued past 9pm last night and will resume at 11am today, will "define the core key issues that we feel agreement needs to be reached on" before a package could be put to the Greens' proposed delegate convention on Sunday, one of the party's negotiators, Dan Boyle, said. Agreement must be reached by this evening, he cautioned, because a text must be put together to give to the 800 delegates due to attend the meeting in the Mansion House. "On timing, there is no other option to us," he said.
Not directly excluding the Progressive Democrats from involvement in an alliance, Mr Boyle said the "composition" of a government would be a matter for talks between Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Green Party leader Trevor Sargent after a programme for government was agreed.
Acting Progressive Democrat leader and Minister for Health and Children, Mary Harney, met for an hour with Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny to "discuss the political landscape" - but not about setting up a Fine Gael-led alliance. She told Mr Ahern beforehand of her intention to meet Mr Kenny. During their meeting, Mr Ahern said he still "desired" to have the Progressive Democrats in government with Fianna Fáil.
Earlier, Mr Kenny had warned the Greens and the Progressive Democrats that the Taoiseach's explanation of his personal finances had been "flatly contradicted" by the Mahon tribunal.
Differences between Fianna Fáil and the Greens about plans to allow private hospitals on public hospital grounds have not been resolved, but publication of this fact in yesterday's Irish Times was "not helpful", Mr Boyle said. Asked if there were still hurdles to agreement, Mr Boyle said: "There are some, and they are some of the hurdles that have existed since the start of the process. I think, to be fair, there have been efforts to bridge ongoing gaps.
"The gaps have been bridged somewhat in some of the cases," said Mr Boyle, who lost his seat in Cork South Central in the general election.
But he said he still had "a sense" that there could be a programme for government agreed given "the opportunity and the willingness" from both sides.
