“People voted for change, the majority voted for Sinn Féin, it makes no sense to go back to the country, to ask the same question again. An election costs €40m to €50m."

“That looks to me like it's the only real option at the moment. So I think what we're now doing is a kind of a mating dance with a result - which looks like it's going to be a Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael coalition," he said.

Sinn Fein's Mark Ward has been elected to the Dail on the ninth count in the Dublin Mid West by-election, a result party leader Mary Lou McDonald said was a good day for the “working class”.

There is a growing fury among unions, representative bodies, and charities over a plethora is issues piling up as government negotiations continue.

Two potential future leaders of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were at loggerheads yesterday over “self-serving” comments on water charges.

Enda Kenny may struggle to secure a minority government as Independents have said that there is a “motorway to travel” before they do a deal.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has once again ruled out any deal with Fine Gael, saying his party “didn’t get a mandate to put Fine Gael back into government” amid growing concern the stalemate could cause a second election.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern says he expects another general election in 2017, if Fine Gael forms a coalition based on independents and smaller parties.

History was made in Cork South West with the election of the constituency’s first female TD, with Margaret Murphy O’Mahony’s win also matching the national pattern of a resurgent Fianna Fáil vote.

Question: Can you look forward 10 years and set out the sort of changes that you would have helped to bring about in wider society if given the mandate to do so by the electorate on Friday.

It is a pack of lies to say the current Coalition inherited “a wreck”. And it’s not convincing people, writes Victoria White.

The Irish do not need Frankfurt to stop us borrowing madly again.

A series of opinion polls published in the weeks leading up to yesterday’s elections were a source of further bad news for the government parties, whose support levels had already slumped significantly in the years after the 2011 General Elections.

THE danger of a double-dip recession will rise sharply if the Government pushes through its €6bn cuts package in next week’s budget, Labour last night warned.

CITIZENS of the country’s three main cities had new lord mayors elected last night.

SO we now effectively have a Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/Labour president thanks to the main parties’ obedient county councillors and Oireachtas members (except for a brave few) who took dictation from Bertie, Enda and Pat.