A Labour minister has accused Fine Gael of "disloyalty" - by suggesting it's ready to go into coalition with Fianna Fáil.
Kathleen Lynch has lashed out after the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney, said he had no "ideological problem" about going into government with Fianna Fail.
She has suggested that the remarks were made by Minister Coveney in order to keep pace with Leo Varadkar as a potential future leader of Fine Gael.
The proposal was also criticised by Labour's Brendan Howlin, who said he would allow the minister to account for his own comments, but argued that this government's time had been monopolised by cleaning up a mess inherited from Fianna Fáil.
The proposal has also been slammed by some of Fine Gael's backbenchers, who say the party of Micheál Martin has done little to convince that it is capable of responsible government.
And it's also been attacked by a leading Fianna Fáil TD, who says the next government needs to do as much as possible to distance itself from the current one.
Our political correspondent Gavan Reilly filed this report for Today FM's National Lunchtime News:
