Counting resumes for nine European Parliament seats

The distribution of votes from the most recently excluded candidates will resume this morning, as the counting of votes in the European Parliament elections enters its fifth day.

In Midlands-North-West and Ireland South the wait to determine who voters have selected to represent them continues as only nine of the country’s 14 seats in the European Parliament have been filled so far.

But a combined total of 32 counts across both constituencies has whittled down the number of contenders and a clearer picture is emerging.

There are four clear front runners for the first four seats in Midlands-North-West.

Fianna Fáil’s Barry Cowen, Fine Gael’s Nina Carberry and Maria Walsh, and Independent Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan are all expected to take a seat.

Attention is then focused on the fifth and final seat, with Independent Ireland candidate Ciaran Mullooly almost 18,000 votes ahead of his nearest challenger Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew.

Ms Gildernew’s bid for a seat rests on the manner in which her running mate Chris McManus will transfer to his party colleague, when he is excluded.

Proceedings will resume later this morning in Castlebar, when the 17th count gets under way, with the distribution of Fianna Fáil candidate Niall Blaney’s votes.

In the Ireland South Euro constituency, 16 counts have been completed with the resumption of counting to begin at 9am.

Fine Gael’s Sean Kelly remains the only MEP to have been elected in this constituency.

Fianna Fáil’s Billy Kelleher came in second place on the first count and is currently more than 8,000 votes off the quota.

Behind Mr Kelly and Mr Kelleher are a group of five candidates, who are chasing the final three seats and just over 13,000 votes separates them.

At the moment, the candidates in that group, in order, are Sinn Féin’s Kathleen Funchion, Independent Michael McNamara, Independents4Change Mick Wallace, Fianna Fáil’s Cynthia Ní Mhurchu and the Green Party’s Grace O’Sullivan.

They leap-frogged each other as counts progressed throughout yesterday, with the exception of Ms O’Sullivan.

In the 16th and final count last night before counting was adjourned, Ms O’Sullivan received more than 7,500 votes from the transfer of Social Democrats Susan Doyle’s 29,617.

But this was not enough to shift her from the bottom of the list of those five candidates in the hunt for the last three seats.

Ms O’Sullivan’s hopes of retaining her seat appear to be fading at this stage, and with them the hopes of the Green Party, who will be left without an MEP, if she is not re-elected.

The most significant move of the day was made by Ms Funchion, who picked up 62% of the distribution of her running mate Paul Gavan’s vote when he was excluded after 13 counts.

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