South count: Flanked by six of her nine children, newly elected MEP Kathy Sinnott savoured the moment as she banished the memories of her narrow general election defeat two years ago.
Ms Sinnott, who first came to prominence when she took the Government to court over its failure to provide appropriate education for her autistic son, Jamie, paid tribute to her motley band of campaigners - including the many hundreds whom she has never met but who are invited to an open house party in her home next Sunday.
"I also want to thank God - I know a lot of shoe leather was worn out on the canvass but a lot of prayers were said as well and I want to pay tribute to God on this campaign," she declared to loud cheers from a couple of supporters among her group.
Ms Sinnott said she came "from a very pragmatic point of view" as "somebody who understands she has to get on those committees to push things forward - for me, it's not about a career in politics, it's about getting things done."
Ms Sinnott said she would decide what grouping to join on the basis of what committees she was offered and whether they would impose a whip.
Defeated Fianna Fáil MEP Gerard Collins arrived at the count centre at around 11 a.m. He looked relaxed as he mingled with people of all parties, accepting their commiserations before talking to the media and announcing that he would not run for public office again.
He rejected suggestions that his vote had collapsed. He had polled 73,000 first preferences - down 10,000 on 1999 but that was when the constituency included Clare.
"Are you still saying there was a collapse - are you withdrawing the word collapse?", he challenged one journalist before breaking into a chuckle.
He refused to be drawn into any recriminations despite his running mate, Brian Crowley, laying the blame for the defeat at director of elections John O'Donoghue and his decision to divide the constituency.
Mr Collins said in his speech: "I want to thank the director of elections, John O'Donoghue, who implemented scrupulously the directive given to him by the Taoiseach. That is nothing but the truth, the whole truth and I want to put it on the record," he declared.
Otherwise, he refused to make any reference to party strategy. "The election is over and we'll move on from there. I'm quite prepared to live with the result without any recriminations. I would have wished to be re-elected but the people decided otherwise and I have no difficulty with that," he said.
"Somebody reminded me of Cicero this morning and do you know what Cicero did, he went to his garden and reflected and I think I will do my reflection in either the garden or with a fishing rod in Dingle Bay. I have no regrets, none whatsoever. I wish those who won every success and my commiserations to those who didn't."
The pattern of voting went entirely as predicted. Independent Anthony O'Connor didn't provide Simon Coveney with enough votes to be elected but Lily Moynihan - who was campaigning on a justice ticket - did when her 795 transfers nudged him over the quota with 264 votes to spare on Count 4.
At that stage, Ms Sinnott was leading Collins by 16,433 votes and the elimination and distribution of the votes of Independent Gerard Hannan and Chris O'Leary of the Greens saw her widen the gap to 18,690 before the elimination of Brendan Ryan of Labour and Sinn Féin's David Cullinane finalised matters. At the end, Sinnott had 120,600 votes - just 468 short of the quota - but more than 32,942 votes ahead of Collins.
Meanwhile, newly elected Fine Gael MEP Simon Coveney did not rule out resigning his Cork South Central seat before the next general election.
"I may not hold it right to the next general election. What I want to do is to continue to run an efficient TD's office in Cork South Central and obviously I'm going to be spending a lot of time in Brussels and Strasbourg so I'm going to ask Enda Kenny to take me off the front bench, which will obviously ease the pressure on me from a national politics point of view.
Mr Coveney said he did not "sense any appetite for a by-election in Cork South Central, not from the general public. There are a lot of precedents there for TDs who become MEPs and stay on until the next general election - Gerry Collins did it, Pat Cox did it for a while, Ray McSharry did it, I think, and so did Pat the Cope Gallagher".
He said it was highly unlikely that he would be standing in the next general election.
