Gilmore elected on first count

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore has been elected in Dun Laoghaire with 11,468 first preferences, over the quota of 11,336.

Also in the running to take seats in the battleground constituency are Seán Barrett (10,504) and Mary Mitchell-O'Connor (9,087), both of Fine Gael.

Meanwhile the final seat looks like it will be fought out between Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit (6,206) and Ivana Bacik of Labour (5,749).

That of course means a number of high-profile eliminations are now looking certain - Mary Hanafin and Barry Andrews of Fianna Fáil (5,019 and 3,542 respectively) and Ciaran Cuffe of the Green Party (2,156).

Mr Gilmore said he was confident he could bring in his running mate, Ivana Bacik, in the constituency.

“It’s an historic day for the Labour Party,” he said.

“This is the first election in the history of the state that the Labour Party is going to emerge as the second largest.”

Dr James Reilly, the deputy leader of Fine Gael, was elected on the first count in Dublin North.

Independent Shane Ross won a resounding victory in Dublin South, topping the poll with 17,075 and became the first non-party candidate to be returned.

Socialist Joe Higgins, a key player in the United Left Alliance, claimed its collection of left-wing candidates could build on his likely success in Dublin West and take four seats, or up to seven depending on how votes transfer.

His running mate, Clare Daly, looked on course to take a seat in Dublin North.

Mr Gilmore said it was too early to start calling the final numbers of seats.

But he said the results so far signalled that there would be a coalition between Fine Gael and Labour.

“That is the most likely outcome, there’s no doubt about that,” he said.

“But it is early in the day and I would not like to make a final call on that until I see more results.”

Labour TD Joe Costello was re-elected in Dublin Central.

He said the party had won a 10th of the national vote at the last election. This time it had gone up to 20%, with 30% in Dublin.

“I never thought I would see the day where Fianna Fail, which dominated politics for virtually the whole of the 20th century, since the foundation of this state, should now be in meltdown,” he added.