Change of leadership 'always an option', says Labour Senator

Labour Senator for Sligo North Leitrim Susan O'Keeffe has indicated that Eamon Gilmore's leadership will be discussed by the party next week.

"I think that everything will be up on the table next week - the whole of the Parliamentary Labour Party will meet next week as you would expect," she told Ocean FM .

"I don’t think that we can rule anything out at this point. I'm certainly not ruling anything out.

"A change of leadership is always an option."

Update at 5.30pm: Minister of State Jan O'Sullivan said Labour now needed to keep its head and listen to the message delivered by the electorate.

Speaking at the Limerick count centre, the housing minister said: "I don't think we should leave governent. I think we should keep our heads and that what we need is a root and branch self examination.

"We have been so focussed on fixing the country, in our own areas of responsibility that we haven't given people enough sense of what we were doing for the country.

"We have to listen to the message and not just listen in the next few days. We must get down to the real work and build up the country and recognise people are really hurting. We have to respond to that."

Ms O'Sullivan said while they expected it would be a difficult election, it was terrible that very good Labour councillors around the country were losing their seats.