AND SO the ball is rolling on the second coalition row of 2015.
After Simon Coveney briefly left his red coalition partners even redder, after publicly flirting with Fianna Fáil for a courtship after the next election, the focus now turns to Aer Lingus.
IAG's somewhat unexpected third pitch for the airline - at €2.55 a share - would put the government in line for a €340 million windfall which could go a long way towards paying for the promises it'll make in the next Budget, and at the next election.
But already there appears to be some division between the coalition partners as to whether any such deal is really worth pursuing.
Although the two camps are not uniform in their internal thinking, the question ultimately boils down to whether the sale of state assets is a good thing or not.
Fine Gael are of the position that: yes, it is. The NewERA agency which 'owns' the state's ownership in state assets is a Fine Gael creation (in fact it was Coveney who conceived of it when writing Fine Gael policy before the last election).
Labour, however, are not similarly minded. The left-leaning nature of the party means it's generally happier for the state to keep its fingerprints on private enterprise - and, in this case, with good reason.
As an island nation, there is little more important to Ireland's place in the world than to be able to get off the island when needs arise - and for others to be able to get here with the minimum of fuss.
While Ryanair has made great currency (literally) in enabling transport on and off the island, Ryanair is a fundamentally commercial operation and if a route isn't commercially viable, it will have no reluctance in cutting the cord.
The state's 25% stake in Aer Lingus means the airline takes on a distinctly patriotic flavour - and the state's right to appoint directors means there will always be a voice arguing for the interest of the nation and not just the shareholder.
The proposed sale of Aer Lingus is somewhat unusual in that it's not just a matter for the cabinet - it's also a matter for the Dáil.
That's because, when Fianna Fáil introduced the laws to pave the way for an eventual sale of the airline in 2003, Seamus Brennan offered a fig leaf to Fine Gael and Labour - who were worried that such a day might eventually come.
Then-minister Brennan agreed to a clause, requiring Dáil approval for the principle of a sale, after lobbying from Fine Gael's transport spokesman Denis Naughten and his Labour counterpart Roisin Shortall.
Ironically, while both are still in the Dáíl, they now sit together on the independent benches - and their former parties may well be happy that the potentially dissenting voices are no longer among their own ranks.
But the issue remains that, irrespective of the localised fears of constituency TDs, there is an ideological divide between the parties on this one -
Either way, it means that - even if TDs have to be whipped into toeing the party line - the parliament will have to have its say on whether one of the most valuable parts of the state's assets can be flogged off.
And, given how many Labour TDs have already publicly dug their heels on the issue, getting agreement on that could be very tough for a Government desperate to show its best face to the world.
