Independent candidate John Moran has topped the Limerick mayoral election poll, but the vote-counting in the landmark poll will continue as he failed to reach the quota.
Mr Moran received a total of 18,308 first preference votes in the landmark election, and was followed in second place by another independent candidate Helen O’Donnell who received 12,903 votes.
The first round of counting was completed late on Monday afternoon.
Fianna Fáil candidate Dee Ryan is in third place after securing 11,785 first preference votes while Fine Gael’s candidate Daniel Butler is in fourth place after receiving 10,190 first preference votes.
Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan got 8,331 first preference votes.
No candidate reached the quota of 39,873, and as a result the candidate with the lowest amount of votes, Colm O’Morain, was eliminated from the election.
There are nine other candidates, including independents and party representatives.
Following Mr O’Morain’s elimination, his second preference votes will now be distributed.
For the first time ever, Irish citizens will select its first directly-elected mayor, in what is seen as a test case for the rest of the state.
A total of 15 candidates are running for the mayor’s seat.
Dozens of staff are counting the votes at Limerick Racecourse, which is being used as a count centre.
Earlier, Ms O’Donnell said that “all is still to play for”.
“I’ve been in a lot of elections where it’s right down to the wire and right down to the last elimination,” she said.
“It’s all to play for, and we simply don’t know what the result is. We look for transfers as strongly as we look for number one votes.
“Hopefully that will stand to us and we’ve had an amazing canvass and an amazing team and Limerick people are watching a historic election.”
She said the election of a mayor for the county will be “really positive” for the area.
She added: “It’s going to be a blueprint for other parts of Ireland to follow. We want to get it right, and we want to get the right person in there and all the candidates have been amazing, and really good to work with. May the best person win.”
She said that it is important for an independent candidate to work with all elected councillors and council staff.
“I think to be collaborative and to be a team player is very important. I’ve said that from the get go, as an independent, you need a stronger working relationship than if you were siloed into a party,” she added.
Minister for Further and Higher Education Patrick O’Donovan said that the tallies come with a “huge health warning”.
“While the tallies for the local elections were very accurate, even some of the tally people that were here themselves said that there are there are substantial gaps,” Mr O’Donovan told PA news agency.
“I think you have to take it with a health warning.
“If the quota is 50 per cent, no-one will reach 50 per cent so this will go on for a long time.
“The transfers ultimately will decide where it goes.
“The number of non-transferable votes will decide where it goes. It really is way too early to predict anything.
“They’ve only started counting in the last hour.
“They only started the ballot papers so there won’t be a first count here for until later.
“You won’t see a trend developing here until you start to see second, third, fourth counts and it’s just too early.
“I don’t know whether that gap that the tallymen predicted is actually going to be the gap at the end, or whether it’s going to be substantially smaller than that.
“We just have to wait and see. I wouldn’t predict it anyway at the moment.”
The 15 candidates are:
Sarah Beasley of Aontú; Daniel Butler of Fine Gael; Independent Frankie Daly; Ruairi Fahy of People Before Profit; Laura Keyes of Rabharta; Brian Leddin of the Green Party; Indepedent John Moran; Caitriona Ni Chathain of the Socialist Party; Independent Helen O’Donnell; Elisa O’Donovan of the Social Democrats; Independent Colm O’Morain; Maurice Quinlivan of Sinn Féin; Dee Ryan of Fianna Fáil; Conor Sheehan of the Labour Party and Gerben Uunk of The Animal Welfare Party.
