Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will be largest parties in local government 

n a voice note sent to Fine Gael candidates on Tuesday morning, Simon Harris described the results as “incredible” but added that the work continues and he is back at his desk. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will be the largest parties in local government, despite both gaining fewer seats than in 2019.

Both government parties were locked on 245 seats late on Tuesday with just five seats left to call. Fianna Fáil won 279 council seats in 2019, while Fine Gael took 255.

Both parties saw their vote shares drop on their 2019 results, but will account for around 500 councillors of the 949 across the country.

Sinn Féin will see its vote share climb by two points to 11.8% and has crossed 100 council seats. While that is an increase on 2019, it is some way off the 159 councillors the party had in 2014.

Tuesday saw the conclusion of a pair of nail-biting recounts in Carlow, where the Tullow Local Electoral Area had seen three candidates separated by just two votes for two seats. Fine Gael’s Brian O’Donoghue took the first of the two seats with 894 votes, while Sinn Féin’s Jim Deane had 893, holding off Fine Gael’s Catherine Callaghan on 892 votes. In another recount in Mayo's Swinford ward, Sinn Féin's John Sheahan beat Neil Cruise by a single vote.

Fianna Fáil will be the largest party on Cork City and Cork County councils, taking nine of the 31 seats in the city and 19 of the 55 in county. 

In Cork City, Labour had a successful weekend, adding Peter Horgan and Laura Harmon to John Maher, while the Greens will also have three seats with Honore Kamegni taking a seat in the South East ward, becoming the city's first black councillor.

The Social Democrats will have three councillors in the county, having retained the seat originally won by party leader Holly Cairns.

Earlier, the Taoiseach told his own party members that Fine Gael is on track to win 245 local seats and will see four MEPs elected.

In a voice note sent to Fine Gael candidates on Tuesday morning, Simon Harris described the results as “incredible” but added that the work continues and he is back at his desk.

I'm really encouraged by the results, to have polled more first preference votes than any other party in the local elections for what I think is only the second time in the history of our country, to have polled more first preference votes in the European elections than any other party is a testament to your hard work, the work we've done on the ground, and the listening and responding we have done to key issues and concerns being raised by people and particularly over the last number of weeks.

In a message sent to a Fine Gael candidates WhatsApp group, Mr Harris said he has been Taoiseach for 63 days and in that time actions have been taken in a number of areas, including migration.