Meath county councillors vote on nomination of a candidate for Presidential election

All eyes were on Co Meath this Monday as Independent candidate Gareth Sheridan and others were hoping to get the opportunity to convince local councillors of their credentials to secure a nomination to be on the ballot paper for November's Presidential election.

However the schedule has changed with a straight vote being taken on whether councillors choose to nominate a new candidate at the 9.30 meeting.

Businessman Sheridan and barrister Maria Steen are seeking late support from councillors, TDs and senators before Wednesday's deadline for nominations.

Mr Sheridan is trying to secure his route to the ballot paper via the support of the local authorities - he needs four councils to back his bid. However he failed to secure the support of Carlow Co Council on Frida and currently has the support of two councils - Kerry and Tipperary. He is targeting Meath, Offaly and Louth today to try and get him over the line.

The Irish entrepreneur and the founder of Nutriband, a pharmaceutical company arrived at Buvinda House this morning but declined to speak to the media ahead of the vote.

The weekend decision by Sinn Fein to back Catherine Connolly's bid to become the successor to Michael D Higgins looks to have made the local authority path even harder now for a new name to make the ballot paper with all three main parties having a preferred candidate. Although Sinn Fein cllrs are not being ordered to support Catherine Connolly, its felt that many will stick with the party lines - the same being said of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.

There are nine Fianna Fail councillors, 11 Fine Gael, five Sinn Fein with the other 15 of the 40 councillors made up of Independents (13), Aontu (2) and Soc Dems (1).

17 names had applied to be heard at the Special Meeting of Meath County Council including Mr Sheridan as well as local hopefuls Lorna McCarthy from Ratoath and David Parnell from Dunshaughlin.

Three candidates have been nominated by parties via the Oireachtas route – Catherine Connolly (Ind), Heather Humphreys (FG) and Jim Gavin (FF)

More to follow...