It’s time to call for international help to sort out this 49-day mess

Dáil Éireann has been out of action now for 49 days due to the failure of elected TDs to form a government. We need to be better prepared for future elections, writes Alison O’Connor.

Our political future remains a mystery but one thing we know for certain is how massively unprepared our system has been for this new fragmented political landscape.

In the normal course of events our politics has been run in a type of organised chaos, where everyone, participants included, have been treated in a mushroom-like fashion, kept in the dark and fed you-know-what until the very last moment when the government of the day would unveil their grand plan of the moment.