Ireland's Greens vote to join government coalition (Roundup)

Jun 13, 2007, 23:35 GMT

Dublin - Ireland's Green Party voted late Wednesday to join a government coalition just one day before the new Irish parliament is to reconvene.

The party approved the deal with a large majority. Two-thirds of the votes were required in order to accept a draft deal hammered out late Tuesday with the Fianna Fail (FF) party of Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, which won the largest number of seats in the May 24 election but fell short of an overall majority.

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent stepped down after the vote. He had said he planned to abandon his post rather than enter a FF government. He said the draft programme 'would mean major changes in people's employment and quality of life,' national broadcaster RTE reported.

The six seats won by the Greens add to FF's 78 and the two remaining seats that existing coalition partners the Progressive Democrats (PDs) managed to hold on to after their vote collapsed to give a slim majority in the 166-seat lower house or Dail.

Ahern has also been in discussions with the five independents to secure a bigger majority for the new government which is due to be confirmed by the Dail Thursday.

The Green Party had expressed concerns about entering government with the liberal free-marketeer PDs, and had aligned itself during the election campaign with the opposition Fine Gael and Labour parties in a so-called 'alliance for change.'

The results in the May 24 election were: FF 78 seats, Fine Gael 51, Labour 20, Greens six, independents five, Sinn Fein - the political wing of the dormant Irish Republican Army (IRA) - four, and the Progressive Democrats two.