PAT The Cope Gallagher is in the race for the last seat in Europe – after a massive recount was ordered.
The Donegal politician and Marian Harkin are just a few hundred votes apart.
And after Fianna Fail asked for a recount, every single 663,703 votes cast in the 15-county constituency will be recounted.
Officially Gallagher is around 250 behind Harkin after sweeping up transfers from Thomas Byrne.
But that’s very small when set against the massive vote.
Representatives for both candidates agreed to call for a full recount which is expected to get underway at 9am.
Earlier Sinn Fein’s Matt Carthy was elected to the third seat in the Midlands Northwest constituency joining Fine Gael’s Mairead McGuinness and Independent Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan.
“The days of the Fianna Fail/Fine Gael stranglehold on politics in this State is long over and good riddance to be quite frank,” said Carthy.
“I just want to thank the membership of Sinn Fein for entrusting me to be the public face of the party for this campaign and to say that I hope that I don’t let them down and I hope that Sinn Fein doesn’t let those people who entrusted us with their vote down, I don’t believe we will. I think we are seen ever increasingly as a party that stands by those communities that need support and we intend to deliver for those communities,” he added.
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