Speaking after a motion to this effect was passed at the party's convention, Green finance spokesman Dan Boyle said the commitment not to increase the rates of corporation and income tax "will shift the focus away from the phoney debate on headline rates towards the more immediate issue of the inequitable system of reliefs and residency rules for the super-rich and towards ending the government's inequitable strategy of stealth taxation".

The motion also committed the party to a radical overhaul of tax reliefs and tax residency rules, "confirming the principle that all money earned in Ireland and all wealth based in Ireland must be liable to tax".

Party leader Trevor Sargent opened his keynote address to the convention in Kilkenny by stating that when he looked around the hall, he saw a "Green Party fit for government".

He strongly criticised justice minister Michael McDowell for his recent "rants", stating: "Minister Mc Dowell, when you associate the anti-war movement and the Green Party with the recent riots in Dublin, you insult the hundreds of thousands of decent, peaceful Irish people who took to the streets in protest against the War in Iraq. Shame on you."

He then turned his fire on Taoiseach Bertie Ahern who should "stand indicted" but "not just for signing blank cheques to pay for Charlie Haughey's Charvez shirts".

It was time, Sargent said, for Ahern to answer, "why did the housing lists double on his watch? Why are social amenities in many communities non-existent? Why are so many schools so badly underresourced? Why are so many drug programmes chronically underfunded? Why are sick people dying on hospital trolleys? Why are a quarter of a million Irish children living in poverty?" Meanwhile, he said, the Taoiseach "spends 19,000 a year on make-up".

Sargent claimed that it was the wealthy developers who were "the big winners under this government and they in turn bankroll Fianna Fail and their PD poodles".

Commenting on the tribunals of inquiry, Sargent said that "bribery, corruption and bad planning are a legacy of Fianna Fail domination in government locally and nationally".

He asked for proof of the government's claims that the scandals were a thing of the past. "Some senior 'Soldiers of Destiny' have clean forgotten that it ever happened.

"Do you believe that an honest man or woman could ever have forgotten the size of payments that have been received or that, in their hearts, they did not know those payments were intrinsically improper and corrupt?"

Sargent promised that, in government, his party would double the insulation standards in every new building in the country; introduce a windfall tax on development land; radically reform the Environmental Protection Agency; appoint a minister for migrant affairs; create free pre-school places for every child; and offer proper paid parental leave.