Mairead McGuinness at the count centre with Meath-based candidate Thomas Byrne
Ardee woman Mairead McGuinness has retained her European Parliament seat after being elected on the fifth count in the Midlands North West constituency this afternoon.
The Fine Gael MEP was in the count centre in Castlebar to hear the news with her final tally coming to 135,698.
The former Ear to the Ground presenter needed 17,000 votes after the fourth count to meet the quota, whereas Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy was less than 5,000 votes away.
However, McGuinness leapfrogged him following the elimination of independent Senator Ronan Mullen to join Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan in Europe.
Carthy, from Carrickmacross, is still likely to take the third seat with sitting MEP Marian Harkin leading the Fianna Fáil duo of Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher and Thomas Byrne by around 30,000 votes. If, as expected, Byrne is eliminated then a lot would depend on how the Fianna Fáil pair transfer between each other to determine who takes the final seat.
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