Greens insist today is
- final deadline for agreement
- on coalition
By - Mark Hennessy, Political
Correspondent.
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.
© The Irish Times, 7th. June 2007.
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