Hard choice on fees dodged for too long

This weekend, as all the kerfuffle around establishing a Government fades, it would not be surprising if some senior Government figures, in the darkening quiet of their sitting room at dusk, and in the company of a large whiskey, asked what they had got themselves into and wondered if even a moderate degree of success is possible.

Equally, Fianna Fáil’s old hands can take comfort in the fact that they have secured significant influence but evaded any real responsibility and the prospect of the negative consequences of not delivering on election promises.

Every minister, and probably every junior minister too, has a bulging in-file and more than enough of those files are deemed urgent. Some, if not the majority, are legacy issues that might have been dealt with by the last Government but the business of getting re-elected got in the way — as it always seems to.