MICHEÁL AND MARY LOU COULD BE A WINNING PAIR

IT IS the morning after the night before: empty bottles toasting a generation with a dream of epic constitutional change litter the scene. From today, politicians will have to catch up with a view on abortion that an enormous majority of voters quietly adopted years ago. And the people have not just spoken, but ordered politicians in writing to do their bidding on abortion.

Yesterday morning began like one of those old black-and-white movies where spinning newspapers freeze on a headline: ‘Landslide for Yes’.

I was very moved when my ‘snowflake’ daughter texted me to say that she was ‘very proud to be Irish’, and so many of her friends had returned from abroad to vote. But it isn’t just the millennial generation demanding a fundamental rethink: more than two out of three people want politicians to reboot their attitudes.

Now that the argument about reproductive rights has been settled, dissatisfied citizens want much more from their elected representatives.

The caravan in Leinster House will move quickly to legislate what they proposed before the referendum, but they are also focusing on the Budget, Brexit and an election – and not necessarily in that order.

Leo Varadkar left the vigorous campaigning to his ministers before the final days of polling, asked questions about the Taoiseach’s leadership. But he can expect a significant personal boost from the referendum result.

His relative youth and modernity gives Fine Gael a lift when the party appears tired as it approaches the end of its second term in office.

Brexit is the next big one: the Irish public wants the Government to take a tough line with the current Tory regime in the UK, which they regard as being as alien as Donald Trump’s presidency.

Varadkar needs to nurse a close relationship with our most important trading partner while maintaining a partnership with the EU – an exceptionally tricky balancing act for a first-term Taoiseach.

Yesterday’s result may temporarily reverse the recent slump in opinion polls

for Fine Gael. But problems will still be dogging the health service after politicians return from their summer holiday in October.

Varadkar is also canny and cautious, unlikely to rush into an election on the wave of euphoria after a victorious campaign. Pundits expect an election early next year.

Micheál Martin has proven himself to be head and shoulders above potential rivals for the leadership of Fianna Fáil.

Despite a majority of Fianna Fáil voters, according to at least one of the exit polls, plumping for No in a referendum where he advocated a Yes vote, Martin showed character and vision – qualities notably absent in his rivals for the leadership.

Michael McGrath may some day lead a diminished Fianna Fáil but his No stance in the referendum rules him out as a leader for the country.

And if he is not leading the government after the next election, Martin may be the best taoiseach Fianna Fáil never had.

Yet his appearance on TV3, where he played Kenny Rogers to Mary Lou McDonald’s Dolly Parton, showed they could be a formidable duo debating their opponents. And the awful dilemma for Martin is that his last chance to be taoiseach may only come about if McDonald is tánaiste.

The leader of Sinn Féin shone in a campaign that could have been designed as a showcase for her talents as a communicator and a magnet for women voters.

With the bearded man from Belfast gone, the articulate Dublin woman can attract voters repulsed by the hard men of Sinn Féin.

The independents didn’t matter much in the referendum campaign and they could be just as irrelevant in the next election.

The Labour Party in Leinster House is like an employee who continues to turn up at work long after retiring and colleagues are too polite to say anything.

Labour didn’t make much of a difference, despite heroic enthusiasm for the Yes campaign – and its fortunes are unlikely to improve after the next election.