Local and European election results: Counting to resume after ‘disappointing’ day for Sinn Féin

Main Points

Local Election Count

• Counting is continuing this morning with just under 200 of 949 local election seats filled.
• Counting of votes in the local elections continued overnight in many areas.
• Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Independent candidates have filled the vast majority of the seats declared so far.
• David Cullinane says Sinn Féin needs to ‘regroup and listen to what the electorate has said’.
• The Greens are also in with a shout of holding their six seats on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.

European Election Count

• Counting to fill the 14 seats in the European election begins this morning with the first official results announced at 10pm (Irish time).
• In the Dublin constituency, tallies suggest Barry Andrews (FF) and Regina Doherty (FG) are polling strongly.
• In the Midlands-North-West constituency sitting MEPs Luke Ming Flanagan (Ind) and Maria Walsh (FG) have performed well, according to tallies.
• In the South constituency, incumbents Sean Kelly (FG) and Billy Kelleher (FF)n contention for re-election.

Limerick Mayoral Election

• A final tally has John Moran (Independent) in front with 16,855 first preference votes (24 per cent).

Best Reads

Not where we want to be

Sinn Fein TD David Cullinane has said the party is “not where we want to be” after indications it has won around 11 per cent of first preference votes based on declarations so far in the local election.

Mr Cullinane warned against underestimating the resilience of the Sinn Fein party and said some council seats would “come down to very complicated transfers”.

“Obviously we expected to do better, I’m not saying that it was a good result for Sinn Fein, of course I’m not,” he told RTE Radio.

“Absolutely there was no complacency. When we don’t have a good day we accept it. We will have to ask the questions you asked me – why did we not get the votes that we expected to get?”

ELECTION SNAP: Robert O’Donoghue of the Labour Party elected for the Rush/Lusk area in Fingal with a vote of a quota and a half. Tania Doyle, non-party, elected for the Ongar electoral area in Fingal on the first count, reports Martin Wall.

Two LEAs in Kildare done, six to go

Counting has concluded in two of Kildare’s eight local electoral areas (LEA), reports Ronan McGreevy.

The five seats each in the Clane and Maynooth areas were filled just before midnight. Incumbent councillors Brendan Wyse (Fine Gael) in Clane and Naoise Ó’Cearúil (Maynooth) topped the polls and were elected on the first count.

It has been a good election for the Social Democrats in the county. They are confident of getting seven out of their eight candidates elected. Two first-time councillors were voted on to the council for the party.

Claire O’Rourke, a retired HSE counsellor, was elected on the first count in the Celbridge local electoral area (LEA). She received 1,412 votes exceeding the quota of 1,376 and was elected along with Fianna Fáil poll topper David Trost who received 1,687 votes. He was also a first-time candidate.

O’Rourke came to prominence in her opposition to an entrance on to the M4 from Castletown House in Celbridge.

Peter Melrose was elected in the Maynooth LEA. He gained national attention in 2021 when he highlighted that a new housing development, Mullen Park in Maynooth, was sold to a vulture fund. Following a political outcry, the Government introduced a 10 per cent levy on bulk purchases of 10 or more houses over a 12 month period.

Former Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy said that having six certainties and possibly a seventh is a “very good day for the party”.

“We knew on the doors that there wasn’t any real surge for Sinn Féin. We were quite hopeful that our estimate was going to be correct for us,” she said. “We were concentrating on our own game.”

It was a good election for the Government parties in the constituency. A Romanian woman who only became a candidate four weeks ago was elected in the Celbridge LEA.

Lumi Panaite Fahey has been living in Ireland for 20 years and was elected on the third count for Fine Gael.

She entered politics as a result of her experience with her son who has additional needs. She is likely to win the seat at the expense of Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin though may get the youngest candidate in the country, 18-year-old James Stokes, elected in the Newbridge area. He was sixth in the tally count with six seats in the area.

Counting resumes in the Naas and Celbridge local electoral areas (LEA) this morning. When it concluded counters at the Punchestown race course pavilion will begin the four remaining electoral areas – Athy, Newbridge, Kildare and Leixlip.

But why does it all take so long?

You might find yourself wondering why the counting of votes in Ireland drags on for days and days and days – after all we are a small country and France and Germany will be finished with it all long before we are.

If you are wondering, you are not alone.

The question has been asked for decades and for a brief period in the early part of this century it looked like we were going to leave the pencils behind and move into the digital age.

That never happened.

In 2014 in the aftermath of that year’s European and Local elections, Mary Minihan wrote a fine piece in which she noted that “long after the rest of Europe had wrapped up, the count in Castlebar to fill the European Parliament seats in the Midlands North West constituency was continuing.”

Meanwhile electing MEPs for the South constituency “involved 12 counts spread over four days in Cork,” she said.

By the time they counted everybody on each count, the election staff had handled over one million pieces of paper. “It’s hard to see how that could be quick,” said one observer.

As was the case this time out there were two ballot papers in 2014 – one for the Europeans and one for the local elections. They had to be separated before the counts proper could begin.

“Our quirky system of proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote (PR-STV) in multi-seat constituencies cannot be rushed. Malta is the only other country that uses PR-STV, which is beloved by many but truly understood by few,” Minihan wrote.

An obvious alternative is electronic voting.

But we tried that once and it was not a triumph.

A pilot scheme in 2002 saw the results in three constituencies announced quickly on the night of the election.

Former Fine Gael minister Nora Owen dramatically lost her seat without warning. “I would never want to see it resurrected….I don’t think the Irish people would ever want to go back to electronic voting,” she said.

The e-voting machines were never rolled out nationally due to security concerns and the experiment cost the State €54 million.

And while the time takes might be wearying betimes, we love it all the same.

“What is lost in speed and efficiency is made up for in transparency and a sense of the importance of the voting process,” according to the editorial in yesterday’s paper. “The long count is both an in-depth civics lesson and a piece of political theatre. It can combine the emotional drama of a knockout sporting fixture with the challenge of a knotty mathematical problem.”

And we’re off…. at least in some places

Our man in Cork, Barry Roche has arrived at the Ireland South Centre at Nemo Rangers GAA Club where counting has just started. It will be a long day there – and everywhere, really. The count in Cork involves “5 seats, 23 candidates and an electorate of 1, 345,792. Approximately 713,000 votes cast, weighing almost 6 tonnes – 5,818 kilos to be precise – to be counted by 250 counting staff under returning officer, Cork City Sheriff Martin Harvey.”

Meanwhile in Wexford counting is due to resume shortly and as Sean Murray notes there were “no first count from any of the LEAs last night so we are hoping they come in thick and fast from early today. The vote for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael was strong across the county here, with Verona Murphy’s nascent Wexford Independent Alliance in the mix for a few seats.”

And Martin Wall is in Fingal where counting is about to re-commence with just one of the 40 seats filled. That went to Fine Gael’s Ted Leddy in the Castleknock electoral area who was elected on the first count.

Our Political Editor Pat Leahy had a good wrap of what we learned from the first day of the count that was published late last night in case you missed it. It will bring you up to speed pretty quickly.

Done and dusted in Castlebar after all-night count

They are a hardy lot in Mayo, that’s for sure. The Castlebar count went through the night and it has only just finished, reports Paul O’Malley.

Fianna Fail’s Blackie Gavin was elected on the 11th Count with fellow party member Al McDonnell joining him on the 13th count. Fine Gael’s Ger Deere and independent Michael Kilcoyne were both elected on the first count, which might seem like a lifetime ago for those at the centre.

Independent Harry Barrett, FG’s Donna Sheridan and Cyril Burke were all elected on the 14th and final count meaning there is no room in the chamber for Stephen Kerr who ran on an anti-immigration platform while incumbent Fianna Fail councillor Martin McLoughlin also missed out.

Independents and SF’s have a good day out in Leitrim

The number of independents on who will have a seat on Leitrim’s county council has climbed from four to five while Sinn Féin managed to double their number of seats, admittedly from a low base of two up to four, reports Sorcha Crowley.

Fianna Fáil held on to six seats while Fine Gael lost half their seats which will see their presence in the chamber fall from six to just three.

Sitting FG councillor Enda McGloin, comfortably re-elected on the first count in Ballinamore LEA on 1,033 votes, described the party’s performance in north Leitrim as “a complete debacle.” It will be the first time in living memory that there hasn’t been a Fine Gael councillor in the Manorhamilton LEA. Carrick-on-Shannon first-time candidate Maeve Reynolds won a second seat for the party while Ita Reynolds-Flynn, former TD Gerry Reynolds sister, took the third and last Fine Gael seat in Ballinamore shortly before 5am Sunday.

Fianna Fáil had a good day out in Leitrim with stalwart Paddy O’Rourke topping the poll in Ballinamore on 1,434 votes in the first count. Another long-serving Fianna Fáil councillor Mary Bohan was re-elected to the Manorhamilton Local Electoral Area on 925 votes in the third count. Justin Warnock was elected to that LEA on the sixth count. The party won two more seats in the Carrick-on-Shannon LEA thanks to Sean McGowan (912) and Paddy Farrell, who was elected without reaching the quota of 824. Gary Prior won the last seat for Fianna Fáil in the Ballinamore LEA on the seventh count on 984 votes.

Independents have emerged as the second largest grouping on Leitrim County Council. Maths and Agricultural Science teacher James Gilmartin was the first of five independents elected, winning his seat in the Manorhamilton LEA thanks to a massive first preference vote of 1,335.

Enda Stenson and Des Guckian won seats in the Carrick-on-Shannon LEA on the fourth count while Felim Gurn won a seat in Manorhamilton also on the fourth count. Eddie Mitchell won the fifth independent seat on the seventh count in Manorhamilton LEA with 866 votes, without reaching the quota.

Sinn Féin had to wait until 3.07am to see their first candidate deemed elected in the county, with Brendan Barry finally making it over the line with 1,007 votes on the fifth count of the Ballinamore LEA. He was followed by Padraig Fallon on the sixth count of Manorhamilton LEA (1,145 votes) and Cormac Flynn on the seventh count of Carrick-on-Shannon LEA on 841 votes. Roisín Kenny, sister of Sligo-Leitrim Sinn Féin TD Martin Kenny, took the last council seat in the Ballinamore LEA on count eight at 4.54 am.

It leaves Leitrim County Council finely balanced 50:50 between the two government parties of Fianna Fáil (6 seats) and Fine Gael (3 seats) versus five independents and four Sinn Féin councillors. Four women were elected, one more than in 2019 and three of them are newcomers. No breakthrough for any parties of the far right or left in Leitrim.

As it stands, only Leitrim Country Council has elected all its councillors with the final seat being taken by Sinn Féin’s Róisín Kenny in the Ballinamore electoral area at 5am. By contrast, the counting of votes across the Local Electoral Areas of Meath and Donegal are yet to begin.

Good morning. So, here we are again. And where is that? Well, almost 24 hours after counting began, less than a quarter of the council seats have been filled, the count for the European elections has yet to start and we are a still full day away from counting the votes in the Limerick Mayoral election.

Never let it be said the Irish electoral system doesn’t get value for money from the hard working counters in the centres across the country., many of whom were sifting papers and totting up numbers well into the early hours of this morning. I’m Conor Pope and I will be manning this Live News story for much of today.