Victory sealed with 22,000 transfers
After a marathon count lasting more than 19 hours in the RDS, an announcement at 5.15am on Monday declared Mr Higgins as the winner of the third Dublin seat with the Fianna Fáil MEP of five years, Eoin Ryan, pipped at the post.
Mr Higgins was elected on the seventh count after picking up a massive 22,000 transfers from outgoing MEP, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald, to beat Mr Ryan who got just 5,426 transfers on that count.
Mr Higgins joins Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell who topped the poll and the Labour Party’s Proinsias de Rossa who was elected on the sixth count following the elimination of Patricia McKenna.
Following his victory, the former Dublin West TD said: “European countries are dominated by right-wing governments which are trotting out the same capitalist policies as here in Ireland and making working people pay for their mistakes.”
The Kerry native was joined in the count centre by a team of supporters and his by his 91-year-old mother, Ellen, who said: “I’m proud of him, I think he’s very good.”
Higgins (60) said he was looking forward to the weekly trips to Brussels and Strasbourg. “I’ve travelled far and wide in the interests of socialism and so I’m sure we’ll manage,” he stated.
He said he will continue to earn the average industrial wage, giving the rest of the salary back to his party, while claiming legitimate expenses “not the gravy train” which will be published.
A clearly disappointed Ryan said it was a huge privilege to represent the people of Dublin. “It’s the city I love,” he said.
“I’m obviously disappointed but I’ve had 25 years representing the people of Dublin at various levels, local, national and European and I’ve been immensely proud of that. Representing Dublin was a huge achievement for me and I enjoyed it,” he said.
Three candidates including Caroline Simons of Libertas, Dublin Lord Mayor Eibhlin Byrne (FF) and Independent Emmanuel Sweeney were all eliminated on the first count.
After the third count, the process was held up when the unsuccessful Green Party candidate, Deirdre de Búrca, was granted a recheck as she tried to increase her vote to reach the quota necessary to claim back €38,000 of election expenses from the EU.
