Rejuvenated Kenny delivers best result in history

ENDA KENNY has steered his party to its best election result in history, more than doubling the number of Fine Gael seats since he became party leader after the 2002 general election.

The party narrowly missed out on the elusive overall majority but with more than 36% of first preference votes, it was last night on course to win at least 77 seats.

It secured a smaller share of the vote than in its previous best result in 1982 when Fine Gael won 70 seats with 42% of the first preference share.