Despite a flurry of activity, government formation remains a work in progress.

Simply put, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party have the numbers, with 84 seats between them.

There is a desire among the larger parties to bring in some independents as well. The distance on policy between many of them and the Greens, as articulated by Denis Naughten, make that difficult.

The 19 rural-based Independents are spread across three groupings, but could coalesce with FF and FG and Labour or the Social Democrats, who each have six seats.

Nobody wants to carry the blame for the collapse of negotiations, but an added complicating factor is that each party is committed to polling their membership on any deal.