The Taoiseach has said a third party must be found to form the next government.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are putting together a programme for government, but are eight votes short of a Dáil majority.
The Greens, Labour and the Social Democrats have all ruled themselves out of coalition, with the two civil war parties at the moment.
But Leo Varadkar says one of them will be needed if they next government is to las.
"I'm firmly of the view that if Fine Gael is going to participate in the next government we need a third party.
"We can absolutely work with independents, as we did for the past four years and very successfully.
"But a government the relies on nine or ten independents supporting the government on every crucial vote isn't one that's going to be stable, isn't one that is going to be able to make the tough decisions and hard calls that have to be made over the next couple of years."
