Let's hope our new MEPs deliver the goods

I suppose it was only fitting that 30 years after hosting the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, which Ireland won, that Fianna Fáil’s Cynthia Ní Mhurchú won another significant contest – one of the five seats in the Ireland South constituency for the Euro elections.

I’m sure there were times during the marathon count that the Carlow candidate cast her mind back to the count for that 1994 contest, as her position on the leader board changed practically with every count.

Most importantly, Ms Ní Mhurchú started off the count in fourth place out of a total of 23 candidates with an impressive 55,209 first preference votes. And while her position changed on a number of occasions, after five days of counting she had moved back into fourth place when it counted most – after the 19th and final count – on 92,502 votes.

The result means that two of the five MEPs for Ireland South come from the Carlow/Kilkenny constituency, as Sinn Fein’s sitting TD for this constituency, Kathleen Funchion, took the fifth and final seat with 90,070 votes.

That also means there will be a by-election in this constituency within the next six months, provided the taoiseach doesn’t call a snap election in the meantime.

One thing I love about elections is proportional representation. You can keep the simpler form of first past the post – isn’t it great to think that preferences other than first can play a major part in electing candidates, 19 counts after the ballot papers were originally sorted and counted?

Okay, it took five days of nail-biting tension for the candidates in the thick of things, five days of long and tedious hours on behalf of the counters, but you have to agree it was exciting from the get-go.

Another thing I love about elections is the role of the tallymen. I am friends with one such ‘expert’, who works the Kilkenny end of the constituency. He is a stickler for detail and more importantly keeps a record of all sorts of counts – local, national and European – going back years.

The man can tell you, to the house on a particular street, how people will vote. He was involved with one Kilkenny-based candidate during the recent local elections and instead of trying to shake hands with everyone in his particular electoral area, my man had identified over 850 ‘possibles’ that were a must on the contact list, if the candidate stood any chance of being elected.

The candidate did what he was advised, unusual in some circles, and guess what – he won a seat. My man also correctly called it for the Sinn Féin candidate in Ireland South as early as Monday afternoon. He knew that with a first count of 50,580 she would benefit greatly from transfers, especially from her running mate, party colleague Paul Gavan. And in the end, that is exactly what happened, with deputy Funchion taking the fifth and final seat.

While all attention will now concentrate on the new MEPs, we should not forget the winners and losers in the local elections. As with every contest, there are always winners and losers, but each person who was brave enough to put their head above the parapet and reputation on the line deserves our appreciation.

We should value the fact that we are privileged to be allowed to vote. There are far too many people in the world who do not enjoy the same privilege. Sadly, the number of people who bother to take the time to cast their vote is dropping with each election.

For the European elections, Ireland South had a 53% turnout, but in Dublin that figure was just 43.4%. Some might say that was okay, but you have to bear in mind that people were also going to vote in the local elections, so both figures should have been way above that.

I always maintain it is not good giving out about the state of the nation at the bar counter if we are not prepared to take a few minutes out of our lives to express our opinion in the ballot box. It is the one and only time we can stick it to our politicians – in a correct manner – if we believe they are not delivering on their promise. Time will tell if all of the newly-elected councillors and MEPs live up to their word.