{"id":462760,"date":"2026-05-23T03:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T03:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/462760\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T03:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T03:20:10","slug":"counting-to-begin-in-two-by-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/462760\/","title":{"rendered":"Counting to begin in two by-elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

The process of counting votes in two closely-watched by-elections begins on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

Two new members of the Dail will be elected in the process after voters in parts of Galway and Dublin went to the polls on Friday.<\/p>\n

They chose from a a range of candidates to fill the seats vacated by Catherine Connolly when she became president, and former minister Paschal Donohoe, who left political life to become the World Bank\u2019s chief knowledge officer.<\/p>\n

The respective by-elections are being held in Galway West and Dublin Central.<\/p>\n

The first boxes holding ballots will be opened at 9am at the RDS in Dublin and the Galway Lawn Tennis Club.<\/p>\n

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They must first be sorted before counting formally begins, in a process which could run into Sunday because of Ireland\u2019s complex system of proportional representation with a single transferable vote (PR-STV), where candidates are ranked by preference.<\/p>\n

It means the voting slips need to be counted several times, an undertaking which can take several hours.<\/p>\n

However, a sense of the race will begin to emerge as tally counters observe the sorting of the votes.<\/p>\n

The candidates in Dublin Central include Sinn Fein\u2019s Janice Boylan, who is hoping to secure a second seat in the constituency alongside party leader Mary Lou McDonald; Social Democrats candidate Daniel Ennis; Green Party\u2019s Janet Horner; Dublin Lord Mayor and Fine Gael\u2019s Ray McAdam; People Before Profit\u2019s Eoghan O Ceannabhain; Fianna Fail\u2019s John Stephens; Aontu\u2019s Ian Noel Smyth and Labour\u2019s Ruth O\u2019Dea.<\/p>\n

The campaign of Gerry \u201cThe Monk\u201d Hutch, who has been described in court by a judge as the patriarchal figurehead of the Hutch criminal organisation, has also been closely watched in the constituency.<\/p>\n

Independents Tony Corrigan, Colm Joseph Flood, Mannix Flynn, Malachy Steenson, and John O\u2019Leary are also running.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

The other TDs in the four-seater constituency are Labour\u2019s Marie Sherlock, and Social Democrat Garry Gannon.<\/p>\n

The current TDs for Galway West are Fianna Fail\u2019s John Connolly, Sinn Fein\u2019s Mairead Farrell, Minister of State and independent TD Noel Grealish, and Fine Gael Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton.<\/p>\n

In contention for the fifth seat are Fine Gael\u2019s Sean Kyne, Labour\u2019s Helen Ogbu, Social Democrats\u2019 Mide Nic Fhionnlaoich, Sinn Fein\u2019s Mark Lohan, Green Party candidate Niall Murphy, Fianna Fail\u2019s Cillian Keane, People Before Profit\u2019s Denman Rooke, Aontu\u2019s Orla Nugent and Independent Ireland\u2019s Noel Thomas, formerly of Fianna Fail.<\/p>\n

Galway City mayor Mike Cubbard is among independents Neill Bairead, Patrick Feeney, Sheila Garrity, John OLeary, Michael Ryan and Thomas Welby \u2013 with AJ Cahill running for The Irish People.<\/p>\n

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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The process of counting votes in two closely-watched by-elections begins on Saturday morning. Two new members of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-462760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}