Ireland election: Leo Varadkar willing to team up with bitter rival party to save his premiership
Taoiseach says he is open to grand coalition with Fianna Fail if necessary to form a 'stable government'
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Your support makes all the difference.Leo Varadkar has indicated that he wants to team up with his party's longstanding rivals in a bid to save his premiership.
The Taoiseach's Fine Gael party is down in the polls ahead of next month's election – in a campaign which has seen Sinn Fein surge and the prime minister's popularity drop.
But in a televised leaders' debate on Wednesday night Mr Varadkar indicated that he would be happy to government with the support of Fianna Fail, his party's traditional opponents.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin ruled out a formal "grand coalition" with Mr Varadkar's party and said voters wanted Fine Gael "out of office".
But the opposition leader stopped short of explicitly rejecting a supply and confidence arrangement between the two parties that could see one support the other from opposition – as was agreed in 2016 after the previous elections.
“It’s not my preference but if it’s the only way we can form a stable government in this country I am willing to,” Mr Varadkar said of a "grand coalition" during the debate on Virgin Media TV.
But the next day on Thursday Mr Martin told reporters: “Our response is we will not be in a grand coalition, people want change in this country, they want Fine Gael out of office. I’ve made it clear we have, we want to go into government with other centre parties, clearly Labour and the Green Party would be ones we’d be interested in.
“For the last four or five months we’ve had Leo Varadkar and Fine Gael attacking Fianna Fail, demonising Fianna Fail and then hey presto, overnight, you know what we’ll go into government with Fianna Fail. That doesn’t make sense to the public, I don’t think it has credibility.”
Despite Mr Martin's suggestion that he could go into coalition with smaller parties like Labour and the Greens, polls currently suggest they would not have enough seats to form a majority between them - suggestion cooperation between the two biggest parties is likely.
Despite a bitter rivalry that stems from historic disagreements, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have similar centre-right policy platforms. Mr Martin's party is sometimes seen as slightly more economically interventionist and socially conservative.
Both groups have this election ruled out working with Sinn Fein, who are still politically controversial in the Republic because of their historic support for the IRA.
But the latest poll for the Irish Times shows the left-wing republicans up on 21 per centime just trailing Fine Gael on 23 per cent and Fianna Fail on 25 per cent. Most of Sinn Fein's support comes from younger voters, with older Irish people shunning them.
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