Government formation talks will resume later this week with the picture clouded further due to the coronavirus.

Like a person who at an all-is-possible drinks party promised to take a Christmas Day plunge in the sea when they find themselves shivering on a beach, freezing waves washing their ankles, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil can hardly defer what now seems unavoidable for much longer.

The result of the general election seems to have rocked the political status quo in Ireland.

Fine Gael’s stubborn insistence that it will not consider going into coalition with any other party or group of parties is in danger of creating political instability that could have far-reaching consequences for the economy and society as a whole.

Opening government formation talks between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have established “common ground” but there are still "significant policy differences".

Mr Varadkar, speaking during a Facebook Live questions and answers video, said that opposition parties won 120 seats so he said they should form a Government.

A council motion seeking ministerial intervention to re-instate Joe Brolly as an RTÉ football analyst has been described as “a waste of paper it is on”.

Fine Gael has rejected claims of “game playing” from the Social Democrats which cancelled a scheduled meeting between the parties today.

Next weekend, EU leaders meet in Brussels for what, in the lexicon of diplomacy, is expected to be a four-shirter — a streetwise description of a meeting unlikely to conclude quickly. Whether discussions to form a government here become as bitter remains to be seen.

'As Sunday turned into Monday, FF began to lose seats they should have won. And by the end of the day, only a three-party government was possible. And doubts immediately began to creep in.'

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin considers Sinn Féin not a ‘normal’ democratic party. Fine Gael Taoiseach Leo Varadkar agrees. Do they think it is, as Fianna Fáil Taoiseach Sean Lemass said of his party in 1926, ‘a slightly constitutional party’?

Ambition is little more than the capacity to put conviction before doubt.

The last three seats in Cork East were decided on Count 8 when Sean Sherlock (Lab) reached the quota and FG junior minister David Stanton and FF's new kid on the block, James O'Connor, were elected without reaching the magic figure.

For the first time in Fine Gael history, Waterford failed to elect a TD in a general election after a surge of left-leaning transfers handed the fourth and final seat to Green Party newcomer Marc Ó Cathasaigh.

The electorate has, or at least a very significant proportion of it, again shown it has a greater appetite for change, a greater appreciation of the urgent need to reorder fundamentals than too many politicians.

Pat Buckley, from Midleton, topped the poll with an impressive 12,587 first preferences, which got him elected on the first count as the quota was 10,909.

The prospects for FG junior minister David Stanton have improved and many believe that he will now win the second seat being well ahead of his running partner Pa O'Driscoll.

Sinn Féin Cavan-Monaghan candidate Pauline Tully has said a video of her campaign van playing a pro-IRA song may have been faked.

Fine Gael will be relieved at the shock exit poll for the election but also expects to lose Dáil seats in parts of the country, party chairman Martin Heydon has said.

It's different here, I explained. We’ve a thing called Proportional Representation. We get coalitions of very different parties.

Fine Gael have promised that a third of money raised from carbon taxes will be ringfenced for insulating old homes.