McGuinness sweeps home with 3,000 votes to spare

As expected, Drumconrath-based outgoing MEP Mairead McGuinness topped the poll in the Ireland East constituency for the elections to the European Parliament. The Fine Gael candidate exceeded the quota of 107,313, with a surplus of 3,053 votes, and she was declared elected on Sunday evening. Her total first preference was 110,336 votes. Meath TD Thomas Byrne, who was the second Fianna Fail candidate in the European election race, took 31,112 first preference votes, with Libertas candidate Raymond O"Malley from Ardee taking 18,557 first preferences. On Monday, Labour Party candidate Nessa Childers and Fianna Fáil"s outgoing MEP Liam Aylward were elected to complete the three-seater on the seventh count. Fine Gael polled virtually exactly the same as in 2004 with 40.12 per cent of the vote, and party leader Enda Kenny, who arrived after the end of the count, said that while he was disappointed not to have kept the party"s second seat, Fine Gael had outpolled Fianna Fáil for the first time in European elections. The outcome of the election had been predicted by Sunday afternoon and the atmosphere was slightly muted by the time the final result was completed. Labour"s Nessa Childers was expected to take the seat previously held by Fine Gael"s Avril Doyle. The Green Party did not field a candidate this time around and its vote was swept up by Labour. Ms Childers, a former Green Party councillor, said: 'There is a Green vote out there. The environment is important and it is an issue that the Labour Party is very enthusiastic about as well. I am a Labour Party candidate and the environment is part of our brief.' Daughter of the late President Erskine Childers, she said agriculture was 'a very important issue, and the reform of the Common Agriculture Policy and how we deal with that and the strategic planning needed to go into it'. Liam Aylward, a Fianna Fail TD from 1977 until 2007, was first elected to the European Parliament in 2004. He told reporters it was the 'most difficult election' of the 15 elections in which he has run. He paid particular tribute to Thomas Byrne, who, he said, 'played a major role in winning the seat for me'. The Kilkenny-based MEP, whose vote went up from 15 per cent to 17 per cent 'against the wind', also paid tribute to party colleague Eoin Ryan who lost his Dublin seat. In her acceptance speech, Mairéad McGuinness pledged to continue her 'hard work' and to be 'available as always' to constituents. Fine Gael Senator John Paul Phelan, who came in fourth, was by Monday evening philosophical about the failure to keep the party"s second seat. Twelve weeks ago he was unknown nationally. But he had achieved a significant vote overall, particularly in his home base of Kilkenny, he said.