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Pathway to Power: 5 steps to formation of next government

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With General Election count concluded, RTÉ’s Political Correspondent Paul Cunningham examines the five steps which will lead to the formation of the next coalition government.

1) Parliamentary Party meetings

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are in the driving seat to form the next government as they jointly hold 86 seats in the 34th Dáil – just shy of a majority in the expanded 174-seat chamber.

As soon as this week, the two parties will hold separate meetings. Fianna Fáil has 48 TDs, 10 more than Fine Gael.

They will take stock and discuss their priorities for any future government. More than half of the Fine Gael deputies will be new to Leinster House this time. That’s because 18 of their outgoing TDs retired.

So the party will want to take some time focusing on its new policy platform, before opening talks with anyone else.

2) Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael engagement on policy and structure

When both parties feel they’ve clarity over what they want to do, negotiators will be selected to hammer-out the outline of a Programme for Government. They did this previously in 2020, and also worked together via a confidence-and-supply deal between 2016 and 2020. It’s therefore not expected that this will prove to be too difficult.

Apart from policy, both parties will also have to agree on the structure of the government. Fine Gael has made it clear that it wants the position of Taoiseach to be rotated between Simon Harris and Micheál Martin – just like last time. If that’s agreed, which is expected, Fianna Fáil will no doubt demand that its 10-seat advantage over Fine Gael is recognised at Cabinet. Again, agreement should be reached even if the talks get hot and heavy at times.

3) Selection of Coalition partners

Once Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have an outline agreement of what they want to do, they’ll seek to engage with other parties – bar Sinn Féin. Both the Social Democrats and the Labour Party have significantly boosted their ranks in General Election 2024 and either party would provide a solid majority in Dáil Éireann.

The question is this: what price would they demand from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in return for their support? The Labour Party would appear to be the favourite of the big two parties, but either of them will seek to drive a hard bargain.

If a deal can’t be reached, an alternative option would be for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to reach out to a block of Independents TDs. This worked before between 2016 and 2020, and there are plenty of Independent deputies expressing an interest in such an arrangement.

4) Finalising a Programme for Government

Once a preferred option has been selected, the Programme for Government has to be finalised. This can be a fraught endeavour, even if an outline agreement is on the table, as this is the command paper for the next five years.

If a policy isn’t written down in the Programme for Government, then there’s no obligation for it to be prioritised or delivered on. It’s a crucial phase in the negotiations – the point at which all parties have to compromise and yet, at the same time, feel that there’s enough contained in the document to justify their going into government.

If the deal is sealed, the leaders will then finalise the allocation of Cabinet positions.

5) Dáil vote

If it gets this far, the Dáil vote will be a ceremonial formality as the incoming government will already know that it has a majority to approve their plan.

The Dáil is scheduled to reconvene on 18 December but the only likely decision will be to elect a Ceann Comhairle.

It’s highly unlikely that the next coalition government will be elected before Christmas, given the machinations listed above. Indeed, getting a new government up and running by January isn’t guaranteed.

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