It’s time for a new kind of coalition - The country has decided

ANYONE who suggested last week that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would be, more or less, on equal terms after most votes had been counted would have been dismissed as delusional. 

The count was, in some blue-rinsed minds at least, to be a coronation but was an annihilation for Fine Gael and their coalition partner Labour. Just as Fianna Fáil were thrashed in 2011 when they lost 80% of their seats Fine Gael and Labour have paid a heavy price for unresolved and unacceptable social issues, failure to deliver on real reform, failure to confront self-interest groups in any meaningful way, a very uneven economic recovery, and an untenable disconnect with the life-defining problems facing too many Irish people.

No matter how it is dressed up the result is a personal humiliation for Mr Kenny and an indictment of his inner cabinet circle and closest advisors. It could well end his 14-year leadership and has cast a cloud over some of those who might have hoped to succeed him. Like so many political careers his seems destined to end in failure and, irony of ironies, he may leave the party in much the same condition as he inherited it in 2002. Like eaten bread his achievements will soon be forgotten and his legacy defined by this — for his party at least — disastrous election.