The Government is beginning to look like has-bins

Well, there is going to be a stay of execution for 12 months. And then it is going to descend into a messy crisis again.

I wish I was talking about bin charges but I am referring to the Government.

The house for this brave new world of new politics and new Government has been built with straw and sticks. And no better people to start huffing and puffing than the Opposition parties.

That is not to cast them as big bad wolves. But someday (and it might come sooner than we think) they will blow it all down.

We have now settled into a pattern that will become predictable in the 32nd Dail.

Essentially, it is this: there will be an existential crisis for the Government every second week.

On one level it might work well. We will see more consensus-seeking, deal-making and compromise. The term “railroaded”, applied to legislation, will become as dead a term as “groovy”.

But it also means that all decisions will be incremental and minimalist and careful. You can forget about tough decisions. That ain’t going to happen.

The Government will compromise. It will also lose votes. It will also have to face the Opposition down from time to time and call its bluff. We haven't really seen that poker player brinkmanship yet. But there will be times when Enda Kenny is going to declare he is "all in" and spook out Fianna Fáil and the rest of them.

There are weaknesses aplenty. For one, the Opposition hasn’t signed up to any benevolent societies. Despite the patina of Kumbaya, the name of the game for them all is to pull the Government down. For the Alphabet Alliance and Sinn Féin it cannot happen soon enough.

Both parties have been spiky. Their motions on waste charges this week were good examples. I had to take a second look when I read that from the AAA-PBP; it was moderate and incremental and middle-of-the-road. There was no call for waste services to go back into public ownership. It does not reflect its position.

The purpose? To draft a motion that might have enough to entice Fianna Fáil support and hand an embarrassing defeat to the Government. Ditto Sinn Féin. Fianna Fáil was not buying it as even the modest proposal was not modest enough for it. Here is our report. And there is more of that to come. As Sarah Bardon reports, there's a spate of private members' motions on the Eighth Amendment, all with the intention of flushing out where parties stand - or should stand - on this issue.

That is going to cause a problem for the Coalition. A whip will be imposed to vote it down but a few Independents, especially John Halligan, are calling for a free vote. That could lead to the first internal crisis, and that vacillating will be pounced on by the Opposition.

You wonder too how much fire in the belly there is. Sure, a few of the younger Ministers have motivation and Simon Coveney has been very visible. But there are reports of fatigue and poor relations. When does the process to succeed Enda Kenny begin? Might he end up being a lame duck? Where are the leaders? We might need to bring Jim McGuinness in to explain why this Coalition is losing it, like Mayo lost it last weekend against Galway.

It is all kind of bitty. And I am beginning to revise my bold predictions that the Government and Enda Kenny would last a lot longer than people predicted. Election next May anyone?

Who takes home the bacon if there is a full English Brexit?

There is less than 24 hours until polls open for the referendum offering voters in the UK a choice between leaving the EU and remaining.

The final BBC debate between the Leave and Remain sides was a spirited affair with two mayors of London (former mayor Boris Johnson, and current mayor Sadiq Khan) taking the star billing.

Boris Johnson’s hair looked a bit like Donald Trump’s might after it had been struck by lightning and buffeted by a hurricane. His appearance is scattered. So is his delivery. But he always manages to carry it off with aplomb.

Khan was very assertive and certainly gave as good as he got. As Boris daubed the Remain side “Project Fear”, Khan retorted the Leave side was “Project Hate”.

Arguably the best performer on the Remain side was Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Conservatives in Scotland who argued with real passion, was always in command of the facts and rounded her thoughts well. She also hit Boris with a series of pointed rhetorical questions about his own flip-flopping on the issue that forced him to bluster a bit.

Here is London Editor Denis Staunton's report on the debate.The Irish political parties initially cast themselves as interested bystanders and said they would not take part in the debate (here is my piece on the stance of each party).That changed dramatically in the last weeks of the campaign when Fine Gael ministers fanned out across the UK to hammer home the message that Ireland wanted Britain in and was concerned about the border in the North.

It gave the lie to any officialese that the Government was staying above the fray. Indeed Enda Kenny even got name-checked in the BBC debate by the pro-EU union leader, Frances O’Grady. She said he had warned that one of the consequences of Brexit might be the reinstatement of customs checks and border posts between North and South.

Certainly, the evidence (and the bookies) seems to point to a late surge back to the Remain side. Undoubtedly, the appalling murder of Labour MP Jo Cox last week might have swayed some voters - how many is just impossible to gauge.

A little like the Scottish independence referendum, it seems there are enough voters who are uncertain of the outcome and will plump for the status quo. Could it be because of “Project Fear” as Boris daubs it? Absolutely. Anyone who runs referendums in Ireland knows how powerful a force fear can be.