European election candidates face battle for last two seats in Midlands North West
Elections Picture: In European Counting Royal Carson Castlebar Tf At Continues The In Niall Theatre
European election candidates are bracing for a long count in Midlands North West, with battles for the last two seats likely to erupt in the coming days.
Counting continued late into the night at the TF Royal Hotel in Castlebar, with a first result not expected to be completed until Monday afternoon at least.
While no tallies are being carried out in the constituency, early indications have shown both Independent Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan and Fine Gael’s Maria Walsh performing well, with Fianna Fáil also confident in Barry Cowen’s showing.
Despite these positive indications, Mr Flanagan said that he will only be confident about his own chances “if I take the seat”.
Fianna Fáil’s Lisa Chambers was in buoyant moon as she arrived at the count on Sunday evening, saying that while a seat for Mr Cowen was nailed on, the party is in the hunt for a second seat.
“I think we’re comfortably going to take a seat, from what I’m hearing back. We have very incomplete tallies so it’s difficult to get a grasp on how exactly its going across such a vast constituency,” Ms Chambers said.
Meanwhile, the Green Party’s Pauline O’Reilly conceded that she was unlikely to take a seat, despite tallying well in her own constituency of Galway West.
The senator said that things are currently “mixed” for the party and that they always knew that the local and European elections would be a challenge for the Greens.
With a 73cm-long ballot paper and some 27 runners and riders, Mr Flanagan believes that recounts are on the cards over the coming days.
Mr Flanagan said that it looked as if Chris MacManus, a sitting Sinn Féin MEP, would not make it, while saying that he could not rule out Fine Gael taking home two seats.
The MEP also took a swipe at Fine Gael’s Nina Carberry for “hiding” throughout the campaign, saying that he had not seen her once since it began.
He added that the Irish representation at the European Parliament is set to be significantly changed after this election, which he described as a “little bit of a worry”.
“I can tell you from my own perspective, when you initially get elected to the European Parliament, there is no book out there or no instruction manual on how to do the job correctly,” Mr Flanagan said.
With Fine Gael looking to do well in the constituency, veteran Mayo TD Michael Ring was quick to jump and call for Taoiseach Simon Harris to call a general election for October, rather than going to March 2025.
“I think Fine Gael would be well to go to the country, go to the country in October,” Mr Ring said. “Now is the time.”
One senior Fine Gael source said that the party needed to call the general election well ahead of February, saying if it repeated the mistakes of 2016 and 2020 it would be the “definition of insanity”.