McGrath set to win seat for FF in Cork South Central

Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath is set to be the success story of the election in Cork South Central.

Early tallies from the City Hall count centre this morning showed him running away with the race for the second Fianna Fáil seat.

A mid-morning tally, with one-third of boxes opened, showed him on 16% of the vote.

This early tally also showed Fine Gael on track to take two seats in South Central — but it was clear that it’s going to come right down to the wire for the last seats in the constituency.

Fine Gael’s Cllr Deirdre Clune was ahead of her running mate, Cllr Jerry Buttimer, but the votes tallied at that stage were in her own area.

Pundits in City Hall were predicting that it will be late tonight, or even tomorrow, before a final result can be announced in South Central. Fine Gael will be locked in a fight with Fianna Fáil’s John Dennehy for the last seat.

Green Party TD Dan Boyle was not polling as well as expected in some areas and he could also be left fighting for one of the last seats in the five-seater.

Labour’s Ciarán Lynch was polling well but pundits were expecting this to reduce Dan Boyle’s vote rather than impact on Fine Gael’s hopes of a second seat.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin was at City Hall this morning, along with Cllr McGrath.

Hundreds of party activists were closely observing the count at City Hall this morning. More than 50 party supporters watched as votes were sorted in Cork North Central and Cork South Central.

They were feeding into a combined tally for both constituencies which, as a result, was expected to be extremely accurate.

In Cork North Central, Fianna Fáil’s Billy Kelleher was heading the poll on boxes opened by 11am this morning.

By mid-morning 47 out of 140 boxes had been tallied, spread across the constituency.

These tallies showed Billy Kelleher heading the poll on 23%, followed by Bernard Allen on 17% and Noel O’Flynn on 14%.

Labour’s Kathleen Lynch was on 13%, just ahead of Fine Gael’s Gerry Kelly on 11%. Deputy Lynch was expected to pull well ahead of Cllr Kelly on transfers.

Many of the votes tallied by mid-morning were from rural parts of the constituency, which means that deputies O’Flynn, Allen and Lynch could have reasonably expected to increase their share later in the day.

Former Fianna Fáil councillor Dave McCarthy was on 5% of the vote, according to these tallies, 2% behind Sinn Féin’s Jonathan O’Brien.

Socialist party candidate Mick Barry was on 3%, a disappointing figure for the councillor.

On mid-morning tallies, this was putting him behind Independent candidate John McCarthy.

Article courtesy of the Evening Echo newspaper.