The Opposition need not rush to make deals, writes Arthur Beesley, Political Reporter.
Fine Gael and Labour regard their gains in the local and European elections as a mandate to deepen co-operation on the Opposition benches before the next general election. This will inevitably involve the Greens, given the Dáil arithmetic.
But there will be no great rush to regularise the relationship between the parties in the form of an election pact. With a general election as long as three years away, such a agreement is simply not necessary at this time.
Given the need of each party to develop its own support and political profile, incremental co-operation, where it is possible, is more likely in the short and medium term.
Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens need to secure an additional 26 Dáil seats in the next general election to secure the overall majority required to form a government. Even if the present Government is still on the run, this will be a steep challenge. It will be an even more diffiult task if, as is likely, Sinn Féin continues to sweep up anti-Government votes.
However, a certain giddiness was in evidence in Leinster House yesterday in the afterglow of a weekend that saw Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte prove they could deliver an election success for their respective parties.
Despite Sinn Féin making most of the running in the swing against Fianna Fáil, the leaders of Fine Gael and Labour see last Friday's poll as clear evidence of a demand for an alternative Government.
They are anxious to work together, even though relations between the two parties are never straightforward. For example, there was still a degree of unhappiness in Fine Gael yesterday that Mr Rabbitte did not reciprocate Mr Kenny's call on his supporters to transfer their votes to Labour.
Yet Mr Rabbitte's decision to withhold Labour's support for Fine Gael candidates must be measured alongside his insistence that he will not go into government with Fianna Fáil. This left him depending on the Fine Gael resurgence seen in that party's local and European election results.
Thus, there is a sense that last Friday's poll has changed the context in which Mr Rabbitte and Mr Kenny will do business. One Fine Gael source referred yesterday to a new sense of "parity of esteem" between the two leaders.
In the first instance, the local election result puts Fine Gael and Labour in a position to control nine councils. Thus, it is reasonable to expect Fine Gael-Labour coalition agreements in Carlow County Council; Cork County Council; Dún-Laoghaire Rathdown; Limerick City; Kilkenny; Mayo County; Waterford County; Westmeath County; and Wicklow County.
Despite the loss of two Green seats in the European Parliament, that party's increasing presence in the local authorities will also present opportunities for Opposition co-operation. With the Greens, Fine Gael and Labour could control a further two councils: Fingal and Galway City.
With the Dáil summer recess imminent, it may be the autumn before there is any further engagement between the mainstream Opposition parties. When the House returns, however, it is reasonable to expect further co-ordination on set-piece debates such as private members' motions and leaders' questions.
If such "friendly co-operation" requires only a sense of goodwill between parties, it is a different thing altogether to agree a common policy platform.
For many observers, the most pressing weakness faced by the Opposition in the last general election was the absence of a sense that it was ready to walk into Government and manage the economy.
As one senior Fine Gael figure said yesterday, voters will simply "hold their noses" and vote for the incumbent Government again if they feel that the Opposition has not developed a coherent economic policy.
If the current coalition runs the course until the summer of 2007, 10 years will have passed since the last Rainbow government.
If taxation and fiscal and social policy goes to the core of a party's political identity, the Opposition parties are likely to leave aside discussion of such issues until the election campaign is in sight or has begun.
There may only be talks about talks in the interim.
The discussion will not be confined to the economic realm. Fine Gael has made great play of its decision to reject military neutrality, a move which is at odds with the foreign-policy tradition in Labour and the Greens.
What is more, Fine Gael's farm support might have difficulty with the Green position on the nitrates directive.
Cross-party co-operation is always difficult, but it will be necessary to turn a good local and European election result into a general election triumph.
The parties are eyeing each other tentatively, but there is no talk of marriage.
"One might be looking at a new suit in the wardrobe and making sure it's well pressed," said one Labour figure.