Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has retained his Dáil seat in Donegal, as counting in General Election 2024 winds down.
Minister McConalogue was, along with one other candidate, deemed elected without reaching the quota after the 16th count, when the only remaining candidate below him, independent Thomas Pringle, was eliminated.
The final count saw the distribution of the surplus of the minister’s Fianna Fáil colleague Pat The Cope Gallagher, who was elected on the 15th count.
Between first preferences and transfers, Minister McConalogue attained 11,683 votes, meaning he polled in fifth place in the five seat constituency.
The first two seats in Donegal were filled by two Sinn Féin candidates – including Pearse Doherty – who were elected in the first and second counts.
It wasn’t immediately evident when the Donegal count started that Minister McConalogue would retain his seat. Over the course of the counting though, things gradually turned more favourable for him.
Meanwhile, Minister of State Martin Heydon has secured his Dáil seat in Kildare South.
The Fine Gael TD, who has responsibility for new market development, farm safety, and research and development at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, was elected after the 11th count in the constituency.
He was the second candidate elected for Kildare South, as the Ceann Comhairle, Seán Ó Fearghaíl, was returned automatically to the Dáil.
Of the candidates actually contesting the election for the constituency, Heydon maintained a lead over the other candidates from the earliest counts, and his election never seemed in doubt.
Rounding out the trio of ministers at the department, Pippa Hackett, who has responsibility for land use and biodiversity, was unsuccessful in her bid to win a seat in Offaly.
It’s been a rough couple of days at the office for the Green Party. As counting got underway Saturday morning (November 30), there appeared to be a possibility that they could lose all their seats in the Dáil.
However, they have retained one seat so far, with party leader Roderic O’Gorman securing election without reaching the quota in Dublin West, as all other remaining candidates had been eliminated.
Elsewhere in this General Election, a number of prominent rural TDs have retained their seats.
These include Independent Ireland’s Michael Fitzmaurice, and independents Carol Nolan and Mattie McGrath.
Fitzmaurice was comfortably re-elected to the Dáil after the first count in Roscommon-Galway, surpassing the quota in the constituency by almost 2,000 first preference votes.
Ireland went to the polls on Friday (November 29) to decide which 174 TDs will sit in the 34th Dáil.
Voting began at 7:00a.m that morning and polling stations closed at 10:00p.m that night.
There were nearly 700 candidates running in this General Election, spread around 43 constituencies, with each constituency electing between three and five TDs.
This Dáil will be the largest in the history of the state, and 88 seats are required for a majority.