We need democracy in action, not democracy inaction

Like much of the country, this column was marooned in rush hour traffic yesterday morning when news dropped the interminable counting of ballots in the Longford- Westmeath constituency had come to an end and, with it, the 2016 general election, writes Brendan O’Brien.

Or the first of them at any rate.

You can’t please all the people all the time, as they say, but there must be a case to say the end result has left us with the most unsatisfactory situation in living memory, what with so much of the electorate disgruntled with most of the parties, and others aghast at some of the independents returned in the likes of Kerry and Tipperary.