Lorraine Clifford-Lee loses Seanad seat

Counting in the Seanad elections continues at Leinster House in Dublin. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Cork senator Tim Lombard looks set to lose his seat in the Seanad as votes continue to be counted for the vocational panels.

Lorraine Clifford-Lee was one high-profile senator to lose out having held her seat since 2016.

Outgoing Fianna Fáil senator Ms Clifford-Lee requested a recount after she was beaten by Independent Joe Conway by two-thirds of a vote but the result remained the same.

Mr Conway was elected to the Cultural and Educational panel along with Sinn Féin's Pauline Tully, Fianna Fáil's Shane Curley, and Fine Gael's Cathal Byrne and Seán Kyne.

Fine Gael's Mr Lombard has served on the Agricultural panel where the Green Party's Malcolm Noonan topped the poll on Friday.

With Mr Noonan joining party leader and TD Roderic O'Gorman in Leinster House, it brings to two the number of Green Party representatives in the Oireachtas.

Also elected to the 11-seat Agricultural panel on the first count were Sinn Féin's Joanne Collins and Independent Victor Boyhan.

Fianna Fáil's Paul Daly will retain his seat on the panel while Aisling Dolan is likely to lose hers. The outgoing Fine Gael senator contested November's general election but was unsuccessful.

Once the Agricultural panel is completed, counters will move on to the Labour panel followed by the Industrial and Commercial panel and finally the Administrative panel. These counts will continue through the bank holiday weekend until all are completed.

Meanwhile, the six seats from the university constituencies are now filled following the election of Independent Aubrey McCarthy to Dublin University/Trinity College on Friday.

Counting in the Trinity College exam hall extended into a third day when the final count saw Green Party candidate Hazel Chu trailing Mr McCarthy by 31 votes.

Following the request from Ms Chu, a "simple" recount took place on Friday morning. However, the recount saw the gap between the two widen to 64 votes as Mr McCarthy's votes increased by 49 to 3,770 while Ms Chu's lost four votes bringing her to 3,706.

Mr McCarthy joins senators Tom Clonan and Lynn Ruane in that constituency while Michael McDowell, Rónán Mullen and Alice-Mary Higgins were re-elected in the National University of Ireland constituency.