EAST:OUTGOING MEP Mairead McGuinness was last night re-elected as expected on the first count with 110,366 first preferences in Ireland East. She exceeded the 107,313 quota with a surplus of 3,053 votes.
Labour’s Nessa Childers polled second-highest with 78,338 first preferences while Fianna Fáil MEP Liam Aylward polled 74,666, and Fine Gael senator John Paul Phelan came in with 61,851.
Both Ms Childers and Mr Aylward were expected to be elected although Mr Phelan refused to concede defeat. He pointed out that in the past week his ratings had risen from 7 per cent in the opinion polls to 15 per cent in the election itself. “The Green vote seems to have gone mostly to the Labour Party this time, which has led to a stronger performance by the Labour candidate. That’s politics, I suppose.”
He covered 20,000 miles in 12 weeks on the road in a huge geographic constituency from the bridge in Waterford to the Border near Newry. Geographically, the two Fine Gael candidates were very well-positioned, he said. “I could have done no more. I was the only candidate campaigning that long. I had the disadvantage of not coming from a celebrity background or not having an established political name.”
Arriving shortly before the count, Ms McGuinness said “I never was a celebrity in RTÉ, I become one when I left . . . I’m a great believer that hard work delivers. I’ve spent five years working hard in the European parliaments for the people of Ireland East, those that voted for me and those who didn’t.”
She too was reluctant to concede defeat for Mr Phelan. Asked about vote management, she said: “I was very much confined to Louth and Meath and a bit of Wicklow and Kildare and the strategy was to manage the vote as best we could. Could it have been done better? I don’t know.” They were “certainly going to do some analysis of that”.
Sinn Féin’s Kathleen Funchion polled 26,567 with 20,932 for her running mate Tomás Sharkey. Libertas candidate Raymond O’Malley polled 18,557.
Avril Doyle whose tenure as an MEP ends on July 13th, said she was disappointed Fine Gael did not hold the two seats. “But we had a wonderful turnout and Mairead had just a very small surplus. There isn’t much waste in terms of vote management.”
Taoiseach Brian Cowen arrived at the Punchestown events centre yesterday evening confirming expectations that the previously imperilled Ireland East MEP and candidate Liam Aylward would hold the Fianna Fáil seat.
Mr Cowen told reporters: “We’re hopeful that we’ll have obviously a seat here in the Leinster constituency, the East constituency and also in Munster and the North-West. We’re fighting hard to have a seat in Dublin but we’ll wait and see what the outcome is there.”
Mr Aylward said he was happy he would win the seat but “we have to sit it out and wait”. He expected that his fellow candidate Thomas Byrne would transfer solidly and bring him over the line.
Asked if the media had underestimated his popularity, he said “it was always going to be a challenge” and “when the wind was blowing against us” it was all the more difficult.
He added: “But my vote has gone up from 15 per cent to 17 per cent and in a reduced constituency I’m happy with that.”
Labour candidate Nessa Childers, who arrived at the count with party leader Eamon Gilmore, said, “signs are good but I think we have to wait for the count just to be absolutely sure and I’d like to congratulate Mairead in advance of the count”.
Mr Gilmore said Labour would build on its local and European wins. “The Labour Party has established a new level of support, a new platform,” he said