A safe pair of hands at the ballot box for Fianna Fáil since 1997, junior minister Seán Fleming comfortably regained his seat in his seventh general election.

While his personal vote has plunged since his poll-topping performance in 2016, when he romped home on the first count with 35.1 per cent of the votes, it was still enough to get him home in second place on the eighth count this time.

It was also a better performance than 2020, when he had to settle for the fifth and last seat in Laois-Offaly without reaching the quota.

From The Swan village, near the Laois-Kilkenny border, the 66-year-old has been Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs since July 2020 and was previously a junior minister in the Department of Finance.

A chartered accountant, he is a former chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and is a brother of Laois county councillor Pádraig Fleming.