Connemara South gets down to the business end

Nobody has joined Cllr Noel Thomas as yet in Connemara South, the last constituency to be counted in County Galway.

Seven candidates have now been eliminated on the sixth count.

Count 5 saw the lion’s share of Sinead O’Brien’s 470 votes – 166 of them – go to Green Party’s sitting councillor Alastair McKinstry, who’s now sitting on 814 votes. But he is still unlikely to retain his seat, sitting second last on the table of remaining candidates aiming to take the last four seats.

Fine Gael candidate Pádraig Mac An Iomaire is in second place and 128 votes off the quota.

Tomas Ó Curraoín is 493 off the magic number and still in third place.

Independent Michael Leainde has moved into fourth spot above Máirtín Lee (FF) after getting a large transfer – 140 votes – from Independent PJ Ó Flatharta, but there’s only four votes between them.

Sitting Fianna Fáil councillor Dáithí Ó Cualáin is 760 votes away from the finishing line but there is a long way to go yet in the transfer game.

Count 6 saw the elimination of Kevin O'Hara.

Caption: Cllr Tomas Ó Curraoín...lying in third place.

Conamara South

Distribution of Sinéad O’Brien’s 470 votes

Count 5

Mac an Iomaire (FG) (+38) 1,463

Curraoin, Tomás (Rep SF) (+47) 1,090

Ó Tuairisg, Daragh (FF) (+53) 921

Lee, Máirtin (FF) (+6) 910

Ó Cualáin, Dáithí (FF) (+18) 844

Leainde, Michael (IndI) (+22) 838