With one week to go, here’s the election campaign at a glance...

If Fine Gael is to form a single-party government, for the first time, it is going to have to continue to grab even more undecided voters; yet it is possible that it will get its overall majority without matching the 41% first share of votes that left Fianna Fáil short of an overall majority last time around.

THIS week’s thoughts on the general election campaign:

1. It seems incredible that people are talking of an overall majority of seats in Dáil Eireann for Fine Gael that would allow it to form a government without support from others on the basis of opinion poll ratings of about 38%. Nor does it seem right that a party would be able to take control of government with substantially less than a majority of the popular vote. Our proportional representation system, however, was supposed to prevent that type of thing.