Childers and Aylward elected in East constituency

Nessa Childers (Labour) and Liam Aylward (Fianna Fáil) have been elected on seventh count at East constituency of the European elections this evening.

Distribution of Kathleen Funchion’s votes saw Aylward finish with 103,605 votes, as Childers totalled 102,220.

John-Paul Phelan of Fine Gael ended the count with 76,960 votes.

Neither candidate reached the quota of 107,313 votes, but were deemed elected after Mr Phelan was eliminated.

Mr Alyward trailed Ms Childers for the majority of the two-day count, polling 74,666 first preference votes compared to her 78,338.

However, when running mate Thomas Byrne was eliminated in the fifth count he benefited from an almost 23,000 vote transfer boost to surge into second place.

In her acceptance speech, Ms Childers thanked the voters who supported her.

“What now? It’s a matter of working with the other MEPs in the parliament and to represent the constituency with all my energy and commitment,” she said.

Ms Childers, a psychotherapist, served as a Green Party councillor before moving to Labour last year to run for Europe.

She said she would now focus on learning the details of her brief before she takes her seat in Brussels.

Ireland East had been a major success story for Fine Gael in 2004 with Avril Doyle, who announced her retirement in January, clinching a second seat behind Ms McGuinness, who topped the poll.

Ms McGuinness secured a resounding win again last night in the first count, comfortably retaining her seat with 110,366 votes – 3,053 above the quota.

She said it was an honour to have the backing of so many people and it was a reflection of the hard work of her staff over the past five years.

Today she praised Mr Phelan, whom she said fought a “tremendous battle”.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, who arrived at the count centre in Punchestown after the result, said he was disappointed the party did not retain the second seat, but praised Mr Phelan.

He said the party almost matched its 2004 constituency count.

“I was disappointed that John Paul lost out on this occasion in his attempt to replace Avril Doyle as the MEP,” he said.

“It is fair to say that on the last occasion we had two towering candidates in Avril Doyle and Mairead McGuinness.”