Inside Politics:Wounded in defeat, the main Opposition parties must now pick themselves up and hold the new Government to account, writes Stephen Collins.
The victors now have their hands firmly on the spoils of office, thanks to the election outcome and the inter-party negotiations that followed. The losers have been left to rue what might have been if a handful of seats had gone the other way. The important thing now for Government and Opposition is how they deal with the mandate given to them by the electorate.
The main focus in the next year or so will be on how the Greens adapt to life with Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats. Getting two big Government departments is one thing; how they use them is another, particularly as the purse strings will be controlled by Tánaiste and Minister for Finance Brian Cowen.
For the main Opposition parties, Fine Gael and Labour, the challenge is even more daunting. How do they pick themselves up after the bitter disappointment of coming so near, yet ending up so far from power once more? The disappointment was most apparent among the more experienced Opposition deputies, whose chances of ever attaining power have diminished even further.
In the Dáil on Thursday Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte put aside their regrets and showed some steel by returning to the fray, despite their wounds. Kenny made a few clear hits in his speech on the nomination of the Government.
"The people did not vote for the Green Party to keep Fianna Fáil in power. They did not vote for Fianna Fáil to put in the Green Party. A few of them voted for the Progressive Democrats to keep the Green Party out. That is some ringing mandate for a new Government."
Kenny's observations may have provided scant consolation for the older members of his parliamentary party, but they were greeted enthusiastically by the incoming crop of young Fine Gael TDs who are still basking in the sheer delight of being elected to Dáil Éireann. They believe the future belongs to them and they have time to wait.
Rabbitte had to bat on a more difficult wicket but he rightly made no apologies for the decision to offer the country an alternative government.
"It is not healthy in a democracy that a single party dominates and is likely to dominate politics in the foreseeable future. Our civil society and institutions badly need a change of government. That did not happen but I am proud to say that we fought the good fight."
The Labour leader truly did the State some service by offering the voters a choice of governments, even if what they ended up with was not one of the choices on offer. He was elected as leader of the Labour Party by its members precisely because he rejected the notion of dealing with Fianna Fáil, and the votes his party got in the election were based on the assurance that he would not renege on his word.
Rabbitte set out to make the 2007 election more than a contest about who Fianna Fáil would agree to divvy up the spoils with after the election. He has nothing to be ashamed of, unlike some in his party who tried both during and after the election to play footsie with Fianna Fáil in the hope of getting their hands on the perks of office.
In any case Labour's failure to perform in the election goes much deeper than the strategy of alliance with Fine Gael, as the almost identical result obtained by Labour in 2002 with the opposite strategy bears out. The party will now have to reassess its position once more and try and devise an entirely new strategy for the next time.
One issue it needs to address is its relationship with the trade union movement, which has become a millstone around the party's neck. The bulk of the workforce are no longer members of trade unions, but a sizeable number are being exploited through low pay, poor conditions and a lack of job security. Labour has to learn how to relate to those people.
Fine Gael can look forward to the future with more optimism. Having gained 20 seats it can make the case that a similar gain is possible in the next election. The party has to set itself the objective of becoming the biggest party in the country rather than worrying about coalition partners in advance. Labour is unlikely to enter a formal alliance next time and that could free both parties to go after their constituencies more effectively.
The two main Opposition parties have cleared out of the way almost all of the obstacles between themselves and the Government. The Greens, the PDs and all but one of the surviving Independents are now on the Fianna Fáil side of the House.
Sinn Féin is also on the Opposition benches, but the party's bubble has been pricked if not entirely burst, and it does not pose the long-term threat to Labour that the party feared.
Enda Kenny made the point that more than 50 per cent of the electorate thought they were voting to get Fianna Fáil out of office in the election. That makes the Greens a target for Fine Gael next time in the same way that the PDs were this time. The analysis of transfer pattern bears out the assumption that the vast bulk of Green voters thought they were voting to put Fianna Fáil out of office.
Green voters gave fewer transfers to Fianna Fáil than supporters of any other party, with just 9 per cent of them transferring to their new coalition partner. The Wicklow constituency provides a clear example of the trend. When the Green candidate Deirdre de Burca was eliminated on the seventh count with an impressive 7,144 votes, just 6.9 per cent of them transferred to Fianna Fáil, more than 25 per cent went to Fine Gael and 48 per cent to Labour.
The clear lesson is that Green voters are there to be taken by Labour and Fine Gael next time out. It is obvious that Fine Gael already senses the opportunity, but Labour probably has an even better chance of moving in on Green territory so long as it puts the trauma of not being in power behind it quickly.
In any case one of the things Labour has to do is refocus and remember that while winning power to implement policies is obviously one of the primary functions of politics, it is not the only one. Standing for a sincerely held principle is more important than simply holding office and in the long run it is the politicians of principle who really shape society.
For instance the former Labour TD Conor Cruise O'Brien almost single-handedly changed the way the people of the Republic regarded the Northern problem and Anglo-Irish relations generally. He had a profound influence on the how this State's policy changed over the course of 30 years and his analysis influenced the eventual outcome of the peace process, even if most of the participants might find that hard to accept.
In terms of nitty-gritty politics Dr O'Brien was a cabinet minister in the 1973-1977 Fine Gael-Labour coalition, but his stint as minister for posts and telegraphs will figure as a minor part of his political life. The fact that he lost his Dáil seat in 1977 does not take away from a hugely influential political career.
Much the same can be said of Michael McDowell, who lost his seat last month. He played a vital role as minister for justice in ensuring the health of Irish democracy was not undermined by an unholy alliance of the British and Sinn Féin, but in many ways his real achievements were outside the cabinet room. His role in founding the PDs and, more importantly, defining the party's ideology helped to shape the kind of Ireland we have today.
Fianna Fáil is the ultimate pragmatic party of power. To succeed, other parties have to define themselves differently and stand for something clear and unambiguous. Labour can be forgiven for being disappointed at not achieving power - the only unforgivable thing would be to lose heart, because doing the right thing by the electorate in 2007 did not result in Mercs and perks for a small number of individuals.