Talks between Ireland's two historically dominant centre-right parties and independent lawmakers have reached an agreement that will give a new coalition government a "comfortable majority," a negotiator for one of the parties said on Wednesday.
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, who were the largest parties in the outgoing coalition, have been in talks since they fell one seat short in a Nov. 29 election of the 87 needed to govern.
"There's a group of nine independents now ... and that brings us up to 95, so we've a comfortable majority," Fianna Fail lawmaker James Lawless, one of the party's negotiators, told RTE radio.
A draft programme for government will be distributed later on Wednesday to the lawmakers who have agreed to back the new government, he said.
The document will be published later on Wednesday, said Fine Gael lawmaker Jennifer Carroll MacNeill. Asked whether negotiators had a deal to form a new government, she told Newstalk Radio: "I think we do."
The parties have been aiming to finalise the deal before next week's inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, conscious that his pledges to cut corporate tax and impose tariffs pose a potentially major threat to Ireland's foreign multinational-focused economy.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin is expected to return for a second stint as prime minister when parliament next sits on Jan. 22, having led the country from 2020 to 2022, and rotate the role again with outgoing premier Simon Harris of Fine Gael.
Fine Gael's Paschal Donohoe, chair of the group of euro zone finance ministers, is tipped to return as finance minister.
