A group of independent TDs could form part of the next government with non-party politicians being appointed as senior ministers, a leading independent figure in the Dáil has said.

Denis Naughten, a Deputy for Roscommon-Leitrim, said this morning that a group of like-minded independents together could together hold discussions with other parties with a view to being part of a coalition.

He has said that such a situation happened before, in the inter-party government of 1948 to 1951 when fellow Roscommon-born politician James Dillon led six independents into government and he himself became minister for agriculture.

"There is a precedent there if independents formed part of the government. There is opportunity for that to happen after the next election," he told RTÉ's Morning Ireland.

“A number of like-minded independents can come together and form a programme of government with like-minded partners.”

Mr Naughten, who was expelled from the Fine Gael parliamentary party in 2011, said he had discussed this possibility with a number of independents "both inside and outside the Dáil".

“There are other independents coming around to that line of thinking,” he said.

Asked if bringing together a disparate group with different views would be a recipe for a short-lived administration, he responded that could well be the case if the current rigid whipping system were to continue.

Separately, on the same programme, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams confirmed that water charges were a deal-breaker for his party.

Mr Adams said he himself would pay the charges as he wanted to be responsible in his duties as a politician, thus rejecting a call from newly-elected Socialist TD Paul Murphy to encourage Sinn Féin supporters to boycott paying water charges.

But pressed repeatedly on Sinn Féin’s bottom line in negotiations for forming a government, Mr Adams committed Sinn Féin not to sign a programme for government unless “during the course of the term in government... water charges will be reversed.”