Irish Examiner View: A Government facing massive challenges

The penultimate hurdle to a new administration has been, after almost a five-month interregnum, negotiated. A government will be installed today in the glittering setting of Dublin's Convention Center, an iconic legacy from Celtic Tiger Ireland. The location will not be the only novelty as a formal partnership between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil is unprecedented. Its historical, social and political import could not be underestimated. It is, after all, less than a century since one group tried and executed members of the other.

The establishment of a democratic government is always worth celebration - its performance is an entirely different matter - but today's events shake off an inherited burden, a persistent and limiting tribalism that, like it or not, sold this society short for generations. Any regret at opportunities lost because two centre-right, conservative parties put their differences, more personal than philosophical, before the country's needs can, hopefully, be laid to rest. That anyone who might undermine this belated alliance would face the wrath of an electorate interested more in results than tradition gives real heft to that ambition. That there has been no real difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael more or less since Ireland joined the EU almost half a century ago shows how patient the electorate has been even if loyalties were occasionally misplaced. Hopefully, today's Convention Centre events will finally drive a stake through that particular Dracula's heart. It seems ironic though that just as our moderate parties coalesce extremism is on the rise all around the world.