A week into the election campaign, and it could hardly be going worse for Fine Gael. Its only consolation is there are a couple of weeks to regain ground lost. The first two opinion polls have confirmed Fianna Fáil as firm front-runners to be the largest party in the next Dail.

That said, they will require partners in government; the notion of an overall majority has long been a pipedream for any party.

So what do the maths suggest? Sinn Féin is by far the largest other party, but both major parties have already ruled out having them as coalition partners. Let’s just park the seeming contradiction of insisting the DUP work with Sinn Féin in the Northern Irish Assembly, and deal with the implications of this stance for the maths of the next Dáil.

Coalition

It’s safe to assume Sinn Féin will return as many or more TDs on 8 February; they currently have 22. With 160 seats in the next Dáil (up two), it is expected that Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael will require the support of at least 20 TDs.

The problem is that excluding Sinn Féin could reduce the pool of potential dance partners to 40 at most.

At least 10 of these will be rural independents. Another 10 could be left-leaning independents or small parties. However, they are from diametrically opposing sides of the political spectrum. Richard Boyd Barrett and Joan Collins have little in common with the Healy-Raes, Mattie McGrath, Michael FItzmaurice, Michael Collins and company.

The same could be said for the Green Party, which is poised to gain seats, but would have to have a fantastic day to get more than 10.

The Labour Party also seems stuck in single figures. That means a likely coalition of Fianna Fáil, (or Fine Gael if it has a Lazarus-like recovery) Labour and the Greens. In that scenario, if further support is needed, it will be coming from the left.

There is one other option. Fianna Fáil could call on Fine Gael for outside support for them, in a reverse of the current arrangement. That would allow them form a stable coalition with like-minded partners where their combined seat numbers are lower than the magic 81.

Fine Gael could come under significant pressure to agree to such an arrangement, as Brexit, in its own words, “is only half done”.

Confidence and supply anyone?