European and council elections in Ireland: Counting resumes for fifth day

Counting has resumed for a fifth day in the Republic of Ireland following the elections to the European Parliament.

Nine of the 14 seats have not yet been filled.

No candidates have been elected in Midlands-North-West, where five MEPs will be selected.

After 15 counts, independent Luke Ming Flanagan is leading that race with 95,314 votes.

The quota for those seats stands at just over 113,000.

Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew is 1,968 votes behind Aontú’s Peadar Tóibín, who is currently in sixth place, and 17,409 behind the independent candiate Ciaran Mullooly.

Ms Gildernew had previously said she “probably” would not win the fifth seat.

However, she told RTÉ on Wednesday that “anything can happen”.

Her party is hopeful that transfers from their other candidate, Chris McManus, and boosts from other eliminations will help her take the final seat.

Fine Gael’s Nina Carberry, Fianna Fáil’s Barry Cowen and Fine Gael’s Maria Walsh are set to take the other three seats with about 2,000 votes between the highest and lowest candidates in that group.

Ireland has three EU constituencies which send 14 MEPs to Brussels.

On Tuesday night, Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty, Fianna Fáil’s Barry Andrews, Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan and Labour’s Aodhán Ó Ríordáin were elected to the European Parliament for Dublin.

This followed the election of Fine Gael’s Seán Kelly as an MEP. He topped the poll in the Ireland South constituency on Monday. Counting there continues.

The current Irish government has been in place since June 2020, when Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party voted to enter a coalition together.

Sitting MEP Clare Daly lost her European Parliament seat in the Dublin constituency.

She was excluded on the 17th count and was the first outgoing MEP to lose her seat in the election.

She was closely followed by Green Party MEP Ciarán Cuffe, who lost his seat in the Dublin constituency after the 18th count.

Meanwhile, counting is complete in all 31 local authorities in the council elections in the Republic of Ireland.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were the main winners, Fianna Fáil secured 248 seats, with Fine Gael on 245.

Independent candidates have fared well, securing 186 council seats.

The main opposition party, Sinn Féin, won 102 seats, well below its own target of 200.

The Labour Party have 56 seats and the Social Democrats 35.

The Green Party has 23 council seats, People Before Profit-Solidarity has 13 and Aontú eight.

In total there are 949 council seats.

Elsewhere, Independent John Moran made history, becoming the first person in Limerick to be directly elected by the people to be their mayor.

The Limerick native is a former civil servant, banker and entrepreneur.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald admitted she was “disappointed” by her party’s council election performance but confirmed she has no plans to step down as party leader.

Commentators have suggested the party ran too many candidates which spread its votes too thinly.

Ms McDonald has said she will lead a full review into Sinn Féin’s performance.

The party’s finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty has said the leadership of Mary Lou McDonald is not in question and that he has 100% confidence in her to lead the party into a general election campaign.

He said the party was ready to put its case to voters and show the electorate that it could bring about real change, if given power.