Election results: European election counts resume with just one MEP over quota and battles due over last seats (2024)

Main Points

European Election Count

• Ireland South: In the South constituency, incumbents Sean Kelly (FG) was the first MEP to be elected after a superb performance. Cynthia Ní Mhurchú (FF) has polled very strongly and is in the mix to win a second seat for the party in Ireland South, alongside Billy Kelleher. Michael McNamara (Ind), Grace O’Sullivan (GP) and Mick Wallace (Ind) are also in the mix.The results are available here.
• In the Midlands-North-West constituency, sitting MEPs Luke Ming Flanagan (Ind) and Maria Walsh (FG) look likely to keep their seat after the first count results Barry Cowen (FF); Nina Carberry (FG) . They have each polled over 70,000 votes and are 15,000 votes ahead of the next nearest rival, Ciaran Mullooly (with 57,000). The results in detail will be available here.
• Dublin: Fianna Fáil’s Barry Andrews looks poised to win the first seat in the Dublin constituency, where he finished just ahead of Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty who is likely to take the second. The results in detail are here.
• It’s a tight race between the other Dublin candidates in for the third and fourth seats including Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan, Ciarán Cuffe of the Greens, Independent Ireland’s Niall Boylan and Labour’s Aodhán Ó Riordáin

Limerick Mayoral Election

• John Moran (Independent) topped the poll in the Limerick mayor election with 18,308 votes. Counting continues this morning as Sinn Fein TD, Maurice Quinlivan has been eliminated

Local Election Count

• Only a handful of seats remain unfilled in the local elections
• Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Independent candidates filled the vast majority of seats. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are neck-and-neck for first place.
• Smaller parties are all mostly expected to retain their seats across county and city councils, with some gains for the Social Democrats and Aontú in particular
• Sinn Féin now has 100 seats which is an improvement on its disastrous 2019 election

Key pieces

• Local elections: Three places that tell the story of the local elections
• Analysis: Questions on Mary Lou McDonald’s leadership were always off-limits - until now
• Europe: What to watch for in the count and where will the transfers flow?
• Bobby McDonagh: The only thing the European far right hates more than the centre and the left is each other
• Miriam Lord: Amid the success of Fianna Fáil’s Billy Barrys, Micheál Martin is in the grip of post-victory delirium
• Live coverage of the election counts: The Irish Times will continue its comprehensive live coverage of all three counts on Monday with up-to-the-minute news, analysis and detailed results from each council and constituency. You can select from the drop-down menu below to find the results in your area.

NEWS SNAP: James Reynolds, the disputed leader of the far-right National Party, has been eliminated from the Midlands-North-West race on the fourth count, reports Fiachra Gallagher

Mr Reynolds told Shannonside FM yesterday that he would never run for the party again, as it was a “toxic” brand. He later appeared to back-pedal on his position in a post on X, claiming his words were misconstrued.

The slow bicycle race towards the European Parliament restarts this morning, when counting resumes in the three constituencies. There’s not a chance the process will be concluded today but by tonight we should have a better idea on at least some of those who will go to Brussels for the next five years as Ireland’s representatives. In Limerick, however, the pace should pick up in the contest to become Ireland’s first directly elected mayor. So what should we look out for in the coming hours? Pat Leahy has the answers...or at least some of them.

Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan has been eliminated from the race to be Limerick’s first directly elected mayor, after securing just 11,571 votes, reports David Raleigh.

Mr Quinlivan said he was disappointed with his performance, but he stressed he would fully support whoever wins the election but if they do not perform well in the job he will be asking why.

He finished the race 9,411 votes behind the front-running candidate, John Moran IND, who currently lies on 20,982 votes, having secured over 18,000 preferences.

Helen O’Donnell IND is chasing in 2nd place on 15,571, followed by Dee Ryan FF in 3rd on 13,965 votes.

‘I was aware of some of the candidates from the abuse they had hurled at me on social media’

Two European election candidates have spoken of the abuse they experienced online and in person during the campaign, writes Vivienne Clarke, with one person getting abused on the double.

Labour candidate Aodhán Ó Ríordáin told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show that he received Eamon Ryan’s abuse too, as people often confused them.

There had been “a lot of aggression, a lot of anger” and it had been “pretty ugly” at the beginning of the campaign.

”Often if you had the time to talk to the person, there’d be something else going on, that it wasn’t really about immigration, I might have some problem, there might be an illness in the home. There may be a frustration that was really the cause of the anger.

“But if you’re a sort of a populist politician who is trying to tell people if you’re angry, it’s because of the immigrants, that is leading to anger being manifest across society. And then, you know, they see somebody like me. And then it’s sort of a licence to shout abuse. But I think we can disagree with each other. We can disagree strongly with each other. But I think we have to get a bit of respect back into politics and the public lives. And certainly it’s not just politicians, it’s guards, it’s teachers and any public servants.”

Green party MEP Grace O’Sullivan said she did not experience abuse on the street but did on social media.

“To be honest, it is frightening because even last night, while I was down at the count centre, I was aware of some of the candidates from the abuse they had hurled at me on social media and I found myself standing away from them. And that’s not my nature, because I’d be a people person, and I like engaging with people. But I just stood back because I just felt a little bit nervous.”

I’m sorry, what is happening here? And why am I only seeing it now???

And speaking of Jennifer Bray...

There is likely to be some downtime over the course of the day as we wait for the hardest working counters in politics to sift through tens of thousands of ballot papers over and over and over again – it certainly won’t be as busy as it was over the last three days with just over 25 seats to be decided across three elections.

As we wait for updates, it is worth reflecting on what happened over the course of the election. Jennifer Bray has a really good piece that tells the story of the days just past through the prism of three election areas.

Long day ahead in Limerick

Counting has resumed in Limerick in the inaugural directly elected mayor election, reports David Raleigh.

However, it is likely we will be here again late into the night. John Moran IND remains out in front on 19,719 votes, with Helen O’Donnell IND (14,288), Dee Ryan FF (12,288), Daniel Butler FG (11,337), and Maurice Quinlivan SF (9,528), bringing up the rear of the chasing pack.

Counting staff are currently sorting through 9,488 votes of Frankie Daly IND & Elisa O’Donovan SD who were both eliminated after Count 8 overnight

NEWS SNAP: There will be a full recount in Navan area from 10am. Two seats had been filled before FF’s Kashif Ali called for a recount when he was eliminated with seven votes separating him and SF’s Caoimhe Ní Shluáin.

What’s going down in Dublin Town?

Dublin might be the only European constituency to finish the count today and one way or another it is likely to be a nailbiter with one Green, One Labour and two Boylans fighting it out for the last two seats.

Fianna Fáil’s Barry Andrews and Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty look like shoo-ins at this stage – with the former set to be first past the post.

But this is where it gets interesting. Independent Niall Boylan jumped into third place late last night and currently has more than 39,000 votes after he got a large chunk of anti-immigration candidate Malachy Steenson’s votes once he was eliminated.

Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan has over 37,000, but her running mate Daithí Doolan will be next to be eliminated and he has just under 12,000 votes.

Assuming a large number of them go to Lynn Boylan, that will take her back into third place, and then it becomes a real dogfight for the last seat between Niall Boylan, the Green Party’s Ciarán Cuffe and Labour’s Aodhán Ó Ríordáin.

This is where the 17,000 plus votes of Social Democrat candidate Sinead Gibney are likely to be key with Clare Daly and Bríd Smith also still in the running, albeit some way off the pace.

All done and dusted in Donegal

The rise of the newly-formed 100% Redress Party will undoubtedly be the talking point of the 2024 local elections in Co Donegal, writes Stephen Maguire.

Formed as a result of the defective blocks scandal that saw thousands of homes literally crumble across the county, the party put up a total of six candidates for election.

But to win four seats after stunning performances by the likes of Joy Beard, Ali Farren, Tomas Sean Devine and Denis McGee is perhaps more than even they expected.

Talk of taking a seat in the Dáil when a general election is called next year is already being mooted.

“That must be our aim because the people have spoken locally and we know the support is there,” said Ali Farren in one of dozens of interviews he conducted since topping the poll in the Carndonagh LEA.

There have been a number of impressive individual performances across the constituency, with community worker Declan Meehan trebling his vote from his first outing five years ago to top the poll in the Milford Electoral Area.

Meehan has a track record on community issues and is Donegal’s first openly gay councillor.

It looked for a long time that the gender balance in the county would diminish even further from the worryingly low base of just four female councillors on the 37 strong-seat council.

It did dwindle somewhat but impressive outings for Joy Beard, Sinn Fein’s Dakota Nic Mheanman and sitting councillor Niamh Kennedy means women still have a voice, albeit a quieter one, on Donegal County Council.

It was not Fine Gael’s finest hour with the party losing its seat in the Inishowen Peninsula after Johnny McGuinness lost out on the last seat in the Carndonagh Electoral Area to Labour’s Martin Farren who claimed the solitary seat for his party in the entire constituency of Donegal.

There were emotional scenes when Fianna Fáil’s Donal ‘Mandy’ Kelly topped the poll in the Letterkenny Electoral Area.

The seat was left to Kelly’s father, also Donal, after the sudden death of another son Manus Kelly who was tragically killed while competing in the Donegal International Rally in June 2019. He won the last seat in Letterkenny LEA back in 2019 and passed it to his father who, in turn, passed it to another son Donal Mandy.

Having worked tirelessly in the role for the last three years, Donal Mandy received a huge endorsem*nt from the electorate with an impressive 1,841 first preference votes.

One shock omission from the new-look council will be that of outgoing Milford LEA councillor John O’Donnell who was talked of as a poll-topper but who was ousted partly due to the rise of Declan Meehan.

After all the dust has settled on a marathon vote, the set-up of the new Donegal County Council means that there are 10 Fianna Fáil seats, 10 Sinn Féin seats, 9 Independents, 4 100% Redress, 3 Fine Gael and one Labour.

And we have news of a recount recount (so good they did it twice) from Suzanne Pender in Carlow.

The second recount started this morning. Currently there are three candidates with just two votes between them for final two seats.

Brian O’Donoghue (FG) 894

Jim Deane (SF) 893

Catherine Callaghan (FG) 892

Difficult to say when it will conclude, but the first recount ran until 4.30pm yesterday. 8,000 votes approx to be rechecked.

We have more from Marie O’Halloran in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.

The final seat will be decided today between People Before Profit and Sinn Féin with a full recheck in Killiney-Shankill.

Returning officer Stephen Brady will conduct a recheck because of the six vote margin in favour of PBP candidate and former councillor Dave O’Keeffe over first-time Sinn Féin candidate Roland Kennedy.

An earlier one vote margin had initially favoured Sinn Féin then flipped to PBP whose candidate was declared elected.

Last night Independent Cormac Lucey conceded to Fine Gael’s Dan Carson after a full recheck in Blackrock. Mr Lucey, an economic commentator, said “I lost out by one tenth of a vote, as close a margin as it could have been”.

The results mean Fine Gael remains the largest party on the council with 16 seats, an increase of three.

Late last night Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council lost its outlier status for gender parity, writes Marie O’Halloran. The 40-seat local authority, which previously had 20 male and 20 female councillors, now comprises 27 men and just 13 women.

It is however an outlier as one of the few councils where the Green Party has retained all its seats. Cllr Lauren Tuite, a project manager for rehabilitating derelict buildings, was elected without reaching the quota on day three of the disputed count in Killiney-Shankill. Her election means the party has returned six councillors, one in each ward, on a reduced count.

In the Limerick mayoral election John Moran, the former Department of Finance secretary general who ran as an Independent, is well ahead after topping the poll with 18,308 votes, some 5,000 more than his nearest challenger, Helen O’Donnell, another independent candidate.

However, with the quota set at 39,873 and 15 contenders in the race, Mr Moran is a long way from being elected and the count is a long way from concluding. Fianna Fáil’s Dee Ryan (11,785) and Fine Gael’s Daniel Butler (10,190) were third and fourth respectively after the first count.

Counting will resume later this morning.

While much of the attention today will focus on what is happening at a European level, there are still some very anxious people waiting to find out if the have made it onto councils across the country.

Outside of some recounts that will happen, here is a quick rundown of the seats still outstanding as it stands.

• Carlow - 2 seats to fill
• Kildare - 3 seats to fill
• Meath - 5 seats to fill
• Offaly - 2 seats to fill

So, here we are again. Good morning from The Irish Times. I’m Conor Pope and I will be covering the unfolding story for a decent chunk of the day. It is unlikely to be a frenetic as it has been since Saturday morning (he said hopefully) because as it stands there are just 12 of the 949 council seats still to be filled, a single mayoral contest in Limerick to be decided and 13 of the 14 seats in the European Parliament to be confirmed. Sure it will be over by lunchtime.

No, no it won’t.