It will be “challenging” for Fine Gael to hold all of its local and European seats in upcoming elections, party leader Leo Varadkar has said.
Speaking during a trip to the US, Taoiseach Mr Varadkar said it would be “hard to achieve” the same number of seats as in 2019.
His party secured five seats in the European Parliament in 2019 with 29 per cent of the vote, more than Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin combined.
It also received approximately 25 per cent of the vote in the local elections across the country.
Mr Varadkar said: “Look, they’re going to be challenging. Even though it was not said much at the time, we had an extremely good local and European elections last time.”
He added: “It’s going to be challenging to hold what we have, but of course that’s the objective.
“I think that’s going to be hard to achieve, quite frankly, because we did so well last time.
“But we’re very good candidates at European and local level, and I think they have a very good chance.”
