Summary

  • A second day of counting has concluded after Ireland's general election

  • All of the Dáil's 160 seats left have been filled, but negotiations to establish a government could be prolonged

  • Sinn Féin topped the polls with 24.5% of first-preference votes, compared to 22.2% for Fianna Fáil and 20.9% for Fine Gael

  • But Sinn Féin ran fewer candidates than its rivals, so no one party is able to win enough seats for an outright majority in the main house of the Irish parliament

Live Reporting

  1. All smiles for Sinn Féin at Stormont

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  2. Number crunching

    Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald has told RTÉ's Morning Ireland programme that her first job of work, which she started on Sunday, “is to establish with other parties whether or not there are the numbers to deliver a government without Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael".

    Mary Lou McDonald celebratingGetty Images

    On Sunday evening, Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar said it would be "challenging" to form a government.

    Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin did not rule out working with Sinn Féin, but said "significant incompatibilities" still existed.

  3. DUP leader calls SF surge 'a protest vote'

    DUP leader Arlene Foster says the election was about domestic policies and it appears younger voters flocked to Sinn Féin in a “protest vote”.

    Arlene Foster

    The Northern Ireland first minister told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme that the Stormont administration will work with whoever forms the government in the Republic of Ireland.

  4. 'A seismic break for two-party system

    Chris Page
    BBC News Ireland correspondent

    "Seismic", "historic", "momentous" - those are the sorts of words which are being used to describe the results in the Irish general election.

    Of course, those superlatives are being spoken by Sinn Féin politicians and activists to describe their party's surge.

    But they are also coming from the lips and pens of political analysts, as they assess how Mary Lou McDonald's party has loosened the decades-long grip of the two parties which have dominated Irish governments.