Kildare News: Catherine Murphy has said she has no intention of rejoining the Labour Party following her election in Kildare North.
Ms Murphy, who took just over 23 per cent of the vote as an Independent candidate, was a member of the party until 2003, having joined when Democratic Left merged with Labour in the late 1990s.
She received the support of five Independent TDs during her campaign, including Tony Gregory, Paudge Connolly and Marian Harkin.
Senior Labour members, including TD Róisín Shortall, said on Saturday that Ms Murphy was a good candidate and part of a wider "Labour family".
Following her victory, which has made her the first Independent and the first woman TD to represent the constituency, Ms Murphy said she could not foresee any circumstances at present that would lead her to rejoin Labour.
"I'm very pleased with the group of Independent people I have been backed by, who I hope to be working with," she told The Irish Times. "I'm very focused about that."
Ms Murphy beat the Labour candidate, Naas councillor Paddy McNamara, into fourth place, and polled 1,478 votes more than him.
Labour had been hoping to take the seat, with Mr McNamara one of the front-runners throughout the campaign.
A resident of Leixlip, Ms Murphy has been a member of the town council there since 1998 and Kildare County Council since 1991, and has previously run for the Workers' Party and Democratic Left in one European election and two Dáil elections in 1992 and 1997.
She had planned to stand for Labour in 2002, but withdrew in the face of opposition from sitting TD Emmet Stagg, and what she says was a written promise of a nomination for the Seanad elections, which did not materialise.
Following a further row over the selection of candidates for the local elections, she left the party in June 2003.
Meanwhile, the defeated candidates from the main parties said they all intended to stand in the next general election.
Fine Gael candidate Darren Scully, a relative unknown before the election, who came third in the first count with 4,630 votes, said he believed Fine Gael had run "the best campaign".
"Four weeks ago if you asked a lot of people in Co Kildare, I think they wouldn't have heard of Darren Scully," he said.
Although it had been expected that Labour would poll in the top three, candidate Paddy McNamara said he was "still very proud of my performance".
"It has to be seen in the context of standing against a very strong, left-wing candidate," he said.
Kate Walsh of the PDs and the Green Party's JJ Power said they would context the next election.