The Republic is moving further away from civil war politics with each general election and into a new era of rainbow representation. Southern politics has, in the past, tended to be inward looking, negatively retrospective and rife with nepotism.
The results of last year's general election, however, indicated that a hefty portion of the electorate was becoming bold-er, abandoning their parents' political beliefs and voting for independents and candidates from smaller parties.
The Green Party gained considerably from the shift, increasing its number of Dail seats from two to six while losing out to other candidates by a slim margin in several constituencies.
It seems the task for the Greens now lies in safeguarding and building their support, avoiding the one-hit wonder phenomenon that left the Labour Party reeling in 1997 and lost Dick Spring the party leadership.
In an interview with the Irish News in the run-up to the general election last May, Trevor Sargent, the man at the helm of the Green Party – who was first elected to the Dail in 1997 – said he was "hopeful" that the party would get "at least" four seats and that it was "planning" to secure as many as seven.
The party fell shy of his hopes by one seat which meant that the Greens did not gain group status – with greater privileges than independents or smaller parties.
The election result was therefore bittersweet for the party that first emerged in the Republic in 1981 as the Ecology Party of Ireland before changing its name six years later.
Mr Sargent said he believed that the Green Party was now benefiting from its image as "an international movement" at a time when the south was be-coming more outward-looking.
"When people are looking now internationally at various crises as well as our own vulnerability as a very open economy, it's important that we do think globally and act locally. The Greens follow that principle," Mr Sargent said.
"That makes the Greens more relevant for many people, especially when they hear that there is a whole raft of policies which we were anxious to disseminate before the last election which we are now about to pursue because we have six TDs as well as two MEPs and a range of councillors."
The party's success also suggested that the electorate was looking to the future and recognising that "all aspects of life have to be evaluated on how we can continue to have a quality of life in the next generation that we have taken for granted until now".
"Other parties currently talk and behave as if we can continue to consume finite re-sources, such as fossil fuels, and not take into account the devastation of climate change forever," he said.
"Overall, 80% of our energy is reliant on imported fossil fuels (such as oil) and when one sees the crisis in Iraq unfolding it's clear that we are in a very vulnerable position in this country, notwithstanding the Celtic Tiger... and we don't have a safety net."
Mr Sargent said that he hoped to repeat his party's general election success when voters go to the polls in next year's local elections, predicting that the Greens would take between 40 and 50 local authority seats. And the party is already working to support their Northern Ireland colleagues in the forthcoming assembly elections, pre-paring to send a raft of volunteers north of the border to knock on doors.
"The Northern Ireland Green Party narrowly missed out getting representation in the assembly elections so it hasn't managed to have the profile of the parties that did manage to get seats, Mr Sargent said.
"But it has, without getting credit for it, been an architect for the thinking behind the Good Friday Agreement, going right back to 1981... the year of the Hunger Strikes, a very volatile period.
"The first policy that the Green Party in the south agreed was a joint position in relation to the north with the Northern Ireland Green Party and the Green Parties of Scotland, England and Wales.
"One could say that it was in many ways the earliest example of a consensus based on these islands.
"We always felt that it could translate from being party policy to being an international policy and the Good Friday Agree-ment is in many ways the embodiment of that thinking."
"The foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001 demonstrated that the border does not prevent the spread of pollution and disease.
"In a positive sense, the border should not be allowed to restrict all-island cooperation on tourism, education, pension and health – allowing people to go to the hospital nearest to them, north or south."
Mr Sargent suggested that the Irish government should also learn a lesson from the North-ern Ireland Assembly which he said he believed was more inclusive than the Dail.
"Reforms should be introduced to the Dail that make it similar to the assembly in the way that it recognises smaller parties," he said.
Mr Sergant said he believed that northern representation in Leinster House was "an inevit-able part of improving relations" but that he remained un-sure about how the issue could be resolved without the north's politicians becoming concerned about "Dublin interference".
He also said he believed that Northern Ireland citizens should have the right to vote in presidential elections.
The Dublin TD said he remained convinced that the Good Friday Agreement would be implemented in full – but probably not within the current timeframe.
"I think that the greater common good will become clearer for everybody, from whatever political viewpoint, which would not mean that they would have to compromise their identity," Mr Sargent said.
"It should be possible in a mature civilised society to ensure that there is common cause for people with different points of view when it comes to environmental and economic and social issues."
Mr Sargent, an Irish speaker and a member of the Church of Ireland, said that he knew "a bit" about being a member of a minority group and "being stereotyped".
He voiced his concern that the peace agreement had stereotypes built into it "of sectarian background".
"For the sake of making an agreement it had to preserve the nationalist bloc and the unionist bloc as voting entities so if you're neither a nationalist nor a unionist essentially you're not represented," he said.
"There is no 'quick' solution to the Northern Ireland question but a concrete step would be the disarmament and disbandment of the IRA.
"The policing issue still needs to be worked on so that the existence of paramilitaries from either side becomes irrelevant and redundant.
"Sinn Féin's involvement in the Policing Board requires a huge leap of faith but until all parties are in the Policing Board, progress is going to be so painfully slow it's going to be risking violence.
"The likes of the SDLP have gone out on a limb to join the Policing Board and I think it's an indication of their selflessness that they are not waiting for Sinn Féin to join."
Trevor Sargent, in the meantime, is gearing up for polling day in three months time – so don't be surprised if you get a Dub calling to your door wearing a campaign sticker and looking for a vote for the Greens.
