Air of inevitability on government make-up

There is an air of inevitability hanging over the make-up of the next government.

But political bigwigs needed only to step inside the front doors of count centres to gauge how the age-old tradition of rifts and splits threatens to overshadow the mood for reconciliation almost a century on from civil war.

Clipboard in hand, law student and Fianna Fáil activist Patrick Dunne dismissed the notion of a coalition as he kept a close eye on the Louth tallies in Dundalk.