Galway West
Galway West: 1st Count not expected until evening
Counting of votes begins at 9aat the Bailey Allen Hall at NUIG. There are 181 ballot boxes and around 40 will be opened and counted at any one time beginning with the city boxes.
Tallies will give early trends but a first count is not expected until well into this evening. Counting of votes is expected to last until Monday, or later, – in 2011, recounts and rechecks, meant the final seat wasn’t filled until the five days after the first vote was counted.
The total electorate in Galway West is 103,704 voters compared with 88,840 in 2011. About half of the extra 15,000 voters can be attributed to the addition of South Mayo to the constituency following the redraw by the independent Boundary Commission.
The Galway West constituency has three parts: Galway city, county and Mayo.
The total electorate in Galway City is 46,157, which includes 426 who were added to the supplementary register in recent weeks.
There are 49,868 voters in Galway County, including all areas in Connemara west of Barna and areas including Oranmore, Turloughmore and Carnmore to the east of the city. Some 387 additional county voters were added to the supplementary register.
Meanwhile, there are 7,697 eligible voters in the new Mayo part of the constituency, which includes Ballinrobe and Shrule.
There are 14 polling stations in the city boundary including: Scoil Caitriona Renmore; Camasú Centre/Castlegar Racing Lodge; Ballybane Community Centre; Mervue Boys NS; Tirellan NS; Mercy Convent NS, Francis Street; Presentation NS, Newcastle Road; Shantalla NS; Westside Community Centre, Seamus Quirke Road; Bushypark NS; Gaelscoil Mhic Amhlaidh; Scoil Einde, Dr Mannix Road; Dominican NS, Taylor’s Hill; and St Nicholas’ NS, Claddagh.
There are a further 79 polling stations in the Mayo and County Galway parts of the constituency including Barna NS, Furbo NS, Moycullen NS, Castlegar NS, Maree NS and Oranmore Boys NS.
Polling stations open at 7am and close at 10pm. Voters indicate the order of choice of their candidates by writing the 1 in the box beside their preferred candidate. If they wish voters can write 2, 3, 4 and so on down the line to their next preferred candidates.
This instructs the returning officer to transfer your vote to your second and subsequent choices if your first choice if elected or eliminated. Polling cards are not essential but voters must otherwise bring photographic identification with them when voting.
There are 20 candidates seeking five seats. The sitting TDs were: Éamon Ó Cuív, Noel Grealish, Seán Kyne, Derek Nolan and Brian Walsh, who resigned in January citing ill health.
There was mixed news for the Government parties in an opinion poll published on Tuesday which indicated Fine Gael was in the hunt to retain two seats in Galway West, but Derek Nolan has a big battle on his hands to hold the Labour Party seat.
The poll for TG4 will also serve as a wake-up call to Independent sitting TD, Noel Grealish, as it indicates he is in danger of losing the seat he has held since 2002.
The party share of the first-preference vote in Galway West, according to the poll, is: Fine Gael (30%), Fianna Fáil (21%), Sinn Féin (11%), Labour (6%), other parties (11%) and Independents (21%).
The following is the first-preference support of each candidate as indicated to Ipsos/MRBI: Éamon Ó Cuív (FF, 13%), Seán Kyne (FG, 13%), John O’Mahony (FG, 11%), Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (SF, 11%) and Catherine Connolly (Ind, 8%). Deputy Grealish came in at 7% and the next three candidates were tied on 6% including Labour TD Derek Nolan, Fine Gael Senator Hildegarde Naughton and newcomer Social Democrats candidate, Niall Ó Tuathaill.
Fianna Fáil’s two other candidates, John Connolly and County Councillor Mary Hoade were on 4% each and former Fine Gael now Independent Senator Fidelma Healy Eames was taking 3% of first preferences. Mike Cubbard (Ind), Seamus Sheridan (Green), Tommy Holohan (AAA) and Nicola Davoren (Renua) were all on 2% according to this poll. The four other candidates (Tommy Roddy, James Charity, Ruairí O’Neill and Patrick Feeney) polled 1% between them.