Taoiseach unlikely to be elected today

There is little hope of a Taoiseach being elected today - despite a fresh vote in Leinster House later.

TDs will be back in the Dáil this afternoon for the second vote, 40 days after the General Election.

Enda Kenny and Micheál Martin have finally agreed to talk face-to-face for the first time after the vote this evening.

Fine Gael TD for Dublin Fingal, Alan Farrell, has said today's vote is an act of pageantry.

“Dáil politics has often been described as pageantry, well today is an element of that, an attempt to elect the Taoiseach, we all know it is not going to happen.”

Two groups of Independents have indicated they will abstain in votes for a new Taoiseach later.

The Independent Alliance and the Rural Alliance have said they will not back either candidate for the time being.

But Fianna Fail TD for Clare, Timmy Dooley, has said the Independents will be crucial in deciding who takes charge: “It will take others, other than Micheál Martin and Enda Kenny to decide which one of them is going to be Taoiseach.

“Because they can have their discussion, they can talk about their priorities, but what will not be clear, unless the independents vote today, it will not be clear which one of them will be Taoiseach.”

Labour Minister Brendan Howlin has said that it is ridiculous that Enda Kenny and Micheál Martin haven't sat down to discuss the issue of Government formation: “It’s a complete nonsense.

“We are already beginning to see the country drift, we haven’t got decisive government because we have no Government with a mandate.

“That will certainly become much more acute, if we drift into a situation without a strong Government in place.”

Fianna Fáil's Willie O'Dea says that scrapping Irish Water is a central part of their election manifesto.

However he insists it's not as big a divider between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael as the media makes it out to be.

“Well you know the media seem to be obsessed with red lines and blue lines and whatever I mean those lines don’t take on a particular colour until such time as actual negotiations take place and we haven’t entered into negotiations yet.

“But just to mark everybody’s cards, Irish Water, our manifesto promising Irish Water is very important to us, it is a central part of our manifesto.”