Pat the Cope Gallagher is in a battle for that final seat in Europe.
Pat The Cope Gallagher is hanging on to his European Parliament seat by his finger nails after the fifth count in the Midlands North West European constituency resulted in Fine Gael’s Mairead McGuinness being elected.
It means the veteran Donegal Fianna Fail politician is in a straight fight with Independent Marian Harkin for the fourth and final seat.
Ms McGuinness reached the quota after getting 72% of Jim Higgins’ available transfers following his elimination.
As a result, the Fine Gael candidate reached 135,698 votes to put her ahead of Sinn Fein’s Matt Carthy who is on 126,492.
With Carthy expected to be elected next, it leaves The Cope in a dogfight with Harkin who he is trailing by over 27,000 votes.
It will all come down to how the transfers of his party colleague Thomas Byrne, who has been eliminated, is distributed.
Standings after fifth count:
Flanagan, Luke “Ming” (Ind) elected
Mairead McGuinness (FG) 135,698 elected
Matt Carthy (SF) 126,492
Marian Harkin (Ind) 95,577
Pat “The Cope” Gallagher (FF) 67,606
Thomas Byrne (FF) 63,392 eliminated
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