Sinn Féin has it has begun talks with independents and other TDs about potentially forming a new government.

But the party has again ruled out any prospect of entering a coalition alongside Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil.

The party's deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald says even if either of those parties proposed a programme for government that Sinn Féin could support, it couldn't believe that the programme would actually be implemented.

But she has pointed out that a grouping of Sinn Fein, independents and other smaller parties would be a bigger Dáil grouping than either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil.

And she says the public has now given a clear demand for water charges to be abolished permanently: