Castlerea’s Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan topped the poll after the first count in the Midlands Northwest constituency in the European elections last night.
The sitting MEP received over 78,000 votes – some way short of the quota of over 113,000.
He was followed by Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowan and Fine Gael’s Nina Carberry and Maria Walsh, who all got between 71,000 and 74,000.
Longford’s Ciaran Mullooly is in line for the fifth seat, with over 57,000 votes - almost 11,500 votes ahead of Sinn Fein’s Michelle Gildernew.
Speaking last night, Ming was confident of re-election in the coming days.
Mullooly was also ecstatic after the first count.
Two more counts were held overnight, but they involved the distribution of small amounts of votes, and no one was elected.
The fourth resumes at 10 o’clock this morning.
