Substantive government formation talks to begin between FG, FF and Greens

Substantive talks on government formation are to begin on Monday between Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party.

The deputy leaders of each party met last week to map out a timetable for talks. They also agreed to keep the content of the negotiations confidential.

The talks are expected to last until the end of the month after which each party will put the proposed deal to their members, potentially through a postal ballot.

Sources in Fianna Fáil believe this process may take about 10 days.

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It comes as the Fine Gael Minister for Education Joe McHugh warned “big decisions” will have to be made soon which will require a new government.

“There are going to be big decisions to be made in the very short term so we need a government to do that. That is why there is a priority around this. I spoke to [Tánaiste] Simon Coveney this morning, he was telling me preliminary discussions are going well as of this week.”

Demands

Mr McHugh also said concerns were being expressed by party grassroots as he warned there will have to be an “alignment” between demands for action on climate change and the reality of the economic downturn.

“We can’t ignore what the message is coming from the grassroots and there are fears coming from the grassroots whether it is from the farming community, whether it is people living on very low incomes, all those issues will have to be brought to the fore during negotiations,” Mr McHugh told RTÉ’s The Week in Politics.

“There is no programme for government yet but that has to feed in. There has to be an alignment of where we are at economically and where we will potentially be at in six months’ time.

“Our economy will be in a more difficult position. We are all pragmatists when it comes to protecting the environment but there is also the reality of the economics around climate change and we can’t have people hurting economically and financially as we work our way through this.”

Income tax

Labour has again played down any suggestion that it could participate in the next government.

Labour TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin said Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil “have agreed that there should not be any increase in income tax or USC on anybody regardless of what they earn”.

He added: “Now if that is the basis on which they want to form a government, I don’t think that is a very fair basis and I don’t think that is a basis on which the Labour Party could have anything to do with.”