i want us to have, ideally, a government with no fina gael in it.es to explore over the next days whether that is a possibility. so that is the president of sinn fein, definitely a great day for her and her party. the last hour or so we have heard from the man who currently occupies the prime minister's office, leo of fina gael and as he did numerous times during the election campaign he has ruled out any prospect of going into coalition with sinn fein. it seems that we have now a three party system, three parties are getting roughly the same number of votes and same numberof roughly the same number of votes and same number of seats and that's going to make for forming a government quite difficult and it's not clear yet whether any of the two parties together will have enough to form a majority and i think we will have to count the votes and see what the lay of the land is tonight and tomorrow in terms of coalitions speculations, you know, and in my position very clear during the campaign and for us sinn fein is not an option. but we are willing to

gael. counting is continuing, so let's speak to our ireland correspondent emma vardy, who's in dublin. tonight marks a major change. ireland has been ruled by two main parties for 100 years, finahere is a third. sinn fein emerging as equalforce to rival them. as no one party has an outright majority it's highly likely they will have to agree a coalition. this report fashion photography. —— this report contains flashing photography. radio: storm ciara lashed the country over the past few hours. as ireland took a battering from the weather, the established parties were rocked by a new storm. this breakthrough for sinn fein is unprecedented in the irish republic. once a much smaller player, now on a par with the two main parties who've dominated irish politics for a century. we need change, we need a new government. the best outcome is a government without fine gael and fianna fail so that's the first thing that i want to test. sinn fein‘s ultimate goal is to create a united ireland, breaking northern ireland away from british rule. its historical links to the ira caused controversy during the campaign, but the party appealed to voters with radical left—wing policies on health, h