Taoiseach Bertie Ahern looks set to form a coalition government with either the Green Party or a number of independents and the PDs.
Mr Ahern will meet with Fianna Fáil national executive in the coming days to discuss the party's options for a coalition government with the Taoiseach in office for an historic third term.
After the final seats of the 30th Dail were filled last night Fianna Fáil were left with 78 seats, five short of the number needed for an overall majority meaning they must now find partners for a new administration.
Fine Gael have 51 seats, Labour 20, the Green Party 6, Sinn Fein 4 and the Progressive Democrats 2. A total of 5 independent TDs were elected.
Mr Ahern was quoted in today's Sunday Independentthat his "perferred choice" would be a coalition with the PDs and like-minded independents. However, Mr Ahern gave little away this morning about his favoured options for government only saying a deal with Labour was "less likely" than two other options available to him.
The other options are a coalition with the Green Party or alternatively a deal with the remaining PD TDs - Mary Harney and Noel Grealish - and like-minded independents, such as Tony Gregory, Finian McGrath, Beverley Flynn and Jackie Healy Rae.
The latter may be an easier option for Mr Ahern because of large differences in policy on waste and roads between Fianna Fáil and the Greens. Furthermore, Green Party leader Trevor Sargent has previously said he personally would not lead his party into a deal with Fianna Fáil.
"They [the PDs] have two seats...and then there are a number of independents that are fairly close to my party, that would have been either members of our party, some of them former PDs, some of them long-standing members of our party and there's at least three of those," Mr Ahern said during an interview with Sky Newsthis morning.
"And then of course the Greens, that is another consideration and probably less likely but also talk, I think, would be of the Labour Party," he added.
"We didn't prior to the election do any great work on what we could do on that. We said who we wouldn't go into government with.
"We want to create a government that is able to implement our policies to reform services we need to reform and continue on the work that has been successful in the Irish economy over the the last 10 years."
Mr Ahern has repeatedly ruled out any arrangement with Sinn Féin citing policy differences on the economy as the main stumbling block.
Laois-Offaly was the last constituency to declare final results when Fianna Fáil's John Moloney was declared late last night.
