Country needs stable government: Time for our politicians to get real

Now that the main ceremonies to commemorate the Rising are over, perhaps we can expect politicians of all shades to get on with the important job of forming a stable government.

After all, it is hardly a tribute to those brave souls of 1916 that, 100 years on, Irishmen and Irishwomen seem unable or unwilling to establish what they so willingly fought and died for. Obfuscation and back-biting will not achieve a government; only hard work, ingenuity and a willingness to compromise can do that.

From the moment the results of the general election were announced, it was clear that the formation of a government was going to be a numbers game.