The Green Party leader Eamon Ryan says issues around tax and paying for climate measures remain a 'fairly fundamental difference' between his party and Sinn Féin and 'won't be easily overcome'.

With government formation efforts underway, representatives of the Greens met with Sinn Féin earlier this week for detailed talks on a range of policy areas.

More talks are set to follow next week.

Deputy Ryan told The Hard Shoulder that the initial talks were "very respectful" and there are things both parties agree on.

However, he told Ivan: "I still came out of it scratching my head slightly, saying 'you say you're big into the climate, but you don't really show where the money is going to come from to pay for some of the measures we need'.

"We come from a left-wing perspective - we think the state needs to be bigger and needs to invest in health, housing, public transport and climate measures. You can't do that by cutting every other tax... it just won't work, and that's going to be a difficulty.

"We'll come back to it again - it was exploratory talks, a way of testing what are the differences. But that's one difference, and I think it is a fairly fundamental difference, and it won't be easily overcome."

While both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have actively said they will not enter government with Sinn Fein, Deputy Ryan said he doesn't believe either party would rule out a government with Sinn Féin "in the long run".

"I haven't heard others in the other parties say 'we'll never ever'... [but] to be honest that's up to them."

Timeline

Citing similar suggestions by Micheál Martin, Deputy Ryan said early April is likely the timeline for a new government to be formed.

He doesn't believe anything significant will happen until after the Dáil meets again next Thursday, and suggested that's when people will start being fed up of 'all the faffing around' and want an idea of what comes next.

The Green leader says he doesn't believe politicians would be thanked for going back to the electorate for another vote, and that the same questions around government formation would likely arise again after another election anyway.

However, Deputy Ryan suggested it's not a bad thing that it could take a while for a new programme for government to be agreed.

He said: "I think it is a chance for the political system to give clear direction to the public service.

"It takes a little bit of time to sit down and say exactly which workers are going to build houses, exactly how we're going to fund them and where they're going to be.

"Same on health, and I'd argue particularly on the critical issue of the climate and biodiversity crisis."

He said the "world is burning" and that half measures or pushing action into the future is not the way forward.