The opening coalition moves…

Newly-elected TDs, and those who were up to so recently TDs, have begun to gather in numbers in Leinster House for a series of meetings to debate the fall-out from the election.
The PDs two TDs, and ex-TDs including Michael McDowell, are meeting before all of their general election candidates, and the party’s executive meet later today, though so far they have said little.
The Labour Parliamentary Party is also meeting, but it continues to give little succour to Fine Gael’s Enda Kenny’s hopes of forming an administration. Pat Rabbitte has talked in the last few minutes about “a clean slate” existing after June 14th.
Labour’s Liz McManus is the latest to say that a deal with FF is not on, but Labour’s striking lack of confidence in Kenny’s ability to win the numbers does nothing to bolster his case, even if Mr Rabbitte says that Kenny is still in the game.
The Labour leader’s lack of faith in FG and Labour securing the numbers is illustrated by the fact that he has not made any approaches to the Independents to try and quarantine them from Fianna Fail, if nothing else.
So what is FG up to? Many senior figures genuinely believe that they could manage to get to 83, 84 votes, and they are equally confident that they can find someone in FF to become Ceann Comhairle.
The danger is that if they keep this ball in the air for too long without sight of potential allies putting their hands in agreement that Kenny could look a little foolish, but the situation is so changeable at the moment that only a fool would make final predictions.
If the number crunching does not work, then FG could argue that nobody could subsequently accuse it of failing to warn possible coalition allies of FF of the significance of the Mahon Tribunal’s latest revelations about Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s finances, and that anybody who did go into government would be treated harshly by the public in the next general election. Maybe, maybe not…..
Some so-far unidentified individual in Fianna Fail has been in touch with Independent Finian McGrath this morning, though he is being, perhaps, a tad too enthusiastic for his own negotiating hand.
However, much of what is happening is little more than shadow-boxing. It makes little sense for FF to hammer out a final deal much before the June 14th deadline, if only because of the danger that it could unravel if left on the shelf too long.