The resignation of Irish Tánaiste (Deputy PM) Frances Mary Fitzgerald has averted a pre-Christmas election in the Republic, but has increased the certainty of a poll in 2018.

The already precarious confidence-and-supply agreement between Fine Gael Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and coalition partners Fianna Fáil “may survive another few months, but make no mistake: the election countdown is now on,” The Irish Times wrote in an editorial.

The Times turned its harshest fire on Varadkar, saying the political showdown “provided the first real test of his judgment as taoiseach, and he failed it … [he] allowed his stock to diminish inside and outside his party.”

Leo Varadkar (From Evening Standard/PA Images.)