The Labour Party's recently retired national organiser, Pat Magner, has predicted that Labour would be willing to enter coalition with Fianna Fáil if its preferred alternative of a rainbow coalition with Fine Gael does not attract sufficient votes.
Mr Magner said the Dáil would have a duty to form a government, whatever the outcome of a general election was next year, and that Labour had a duty to the electorate in this regard.
He added that the prospect of a hung Dáil with neither the current Government nor the rainbow alternative having sufficient seats to form a government would place Labour leader Pat Rabbitte in a difficult position.
"I think that Pat Rabbitte has performed very well," Mr Magner said in an interview with RTÉ's The Week in Politics.
"He obviously has very strong views on where he wants to take the Labour party . . . he has outlined the choice and that choice is very stark and very simple in many ways," Mr Magner, who retired last month, said of Mr Rabbitte's position.
Mr Magner said Mr Rabbitte based his successful leadership bid for the party around his opposition to serving in government with Fianna Fáil, and last year obtained overwhelming support from his party for a pre-election pact with Fine Gael.
However, he warned that this position could become incompatible with the outcome of the next election, if a Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition becomes one of the only viable options following the general election. "That's his difficulty. At that stage all bets are off and the deal that we have done with Fine Gael is off because we couldn't succeed in it."
He said in this context the party would be faced with a decision on coalition with Fianna Fáil, and that was a decision for party members, not Mr Rabbitte.
In the past "Labour Party members have been called upon to form governments when the country was on its knees".
He predicted that a decision to enter coalition with Fianna Fáil would be easier than this.
"In this case, we're being asked to forgo government in a country that's awash with money, and which we're saying is being badly spent," he said.
Mr Magner, who has been one of Labour's strongest advocates of keeping open the possibility of coalition with Fianna Fáil, also said he had regrets about Labour pulling out of coalition with Fianna Fáil in 1994.