One of the leaders of the Social Democrats has said it is likely to be Easter before a government is formed.

More early stage talks continued on Tuesday, but no real negotiation on a programme for government has started.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are due to have their first meeting to discuss policy this week.

The Social Democrats co-leader Roisin Shortall says it is still early days.

"I think the likelihood is that we're talking about sometime around Easter.

"I mean it is early days yet - and when you look at the amount of time that it has taken previously to form a government, certainly on the last occasion it was 74 days.

"So we are still in the early phases of that".

Acting Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he is open to talking to every party, including Sinn Féin, to speed the process along.

"What I've said for the past two or three weeks is that we won't form a government with Sinn Féin - but we're not refusing to speak to anyone.

"And we've spoken to Sinn Féin on many matters in the past in relation to lots of different issues, and do so regularly.

"So we've said that we're willing to speak to any party, but not about the formation of a government - we're not doing that at the moment.