The Green Party is aiming to win at least four seats in the general election, party leader Eamon Ryan has said.

Speaking in Cork as the party launched its election campaign, Mr Ryan said the Greens’ experience of losing all six seats, having served as junior coalition partner in the last Dáil, had parallels in other European countries. Green colleagues in Germany , Sweden, and Belgium had similar stories.

“Every Green Party that has ever gone into government in Europe has had the same experience. They lost all their seats . . . There is something about parties like ourselves where people think you are pure ideology going into government and you tend to get hit as a result of it. They have all come back, and we can too.”

Mr Ryan said a crisis was looming for whoever came in to government in 2007 given the banking and property bubbles that had developed.

He acknowledged mistakes were made, but rejected an assertion the party should have walked out of coalition with Fianna Fáil sooner than it did. The party chose to "knuckle down" and do what had to be done, he said.

The Green Party plans to run a candidate in every constituency in the election.

“I think we need a team of people in the Dáil. I would like to win at least four seats so that you can divide up the work that has to be done. Politics is a team game. Our job is to restore pride in politics,” said Mr Ryan.

Mr Ryan said the next government would have to build high-quality housing to solve the accommodation crisis. He disagreed with the thinking of Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly that you build “little box apartments”.

“That’s not how we will attract people into city life. Why would we not, in the 100th year anniversary of our nation, set the simple target of everyone living in good accommodation?”