The parties are all entering uncharted waters and the ultimate result could well be a rebalancing of the entire political system rather than the novelty of a grand coalition between the two Civil War parties. The big election winner was Fianna Fáil. The party has come back from the near- death experience of 2011 to more than double its number of seats and come within just one percentage point of Fine Gael in the share of the vote. The big loser was the Labour Party, which was almost wiped out in the worst election performance in its history. Fine Gael had a deeply disappointing election, losing much more support than it had expected.
Sinn Féin made gains but on nothing like the scale it had anticipated, while the Independents and most of the smaller parties made the gains the polls were forecasting. All of this raises the question about how a government will be formed.
There is every chance a Sinn Féin-led coalition would quickly become the alternative government by the time the next election comes around and Fianna Fáil would inevitably suffer far more than Fine Gael in that situation. The other immediate possibility is that Fianna Fáil might try to do a deal with Sinn Féin. Some of the party’s TDs would like that but Martin has invested so much political capital in attacking Sinn Féin it would make no sense. In any case Sinn Féin has ruled out going into government as a minority party.
Enda Kenny is not in the position he hoped but he is still Taoiseach. Over the coming days Fine Gael can be expected to explore the intentions of some of the smaller parties and Independents to see if there is any prospect of Kenny being elected taoiseach when the Dáil meets on March 10th. 
