Sinn Fein says preference is to form a left-wing government

Sinn Fein's first priority is to form a government with fellow left-wing parties, but the Irish nationalist party will also talk to the country's dominant center-right parties Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, leader Mary Lou McDonald said on Monday.

"My first job of work... is to establish with other parties whether or not there are the numbers, whether there is the political will, to deliver a new government without Fianna Fail or Fine Gael," McDonald said in an interview with RTE.

But she added that "of course" she would talk to everyone, including Fianna Fail and Prime Minister Leo Varadkar's Fine Gael.