Recount fails to elect Ryan

GREEN Party leader Eamon Ryan missed out on spectacular comeback by a whisker in the Dublin constituency in last week’s European elections, losing out to Fine Gael Minister of State Brian Hayes.

Just 1,149 votes separated the pair following the seventh count, prompting Ryan to request a last-gasp recheck. Thousands of ballot papers were duly rechecked but returning officers confirmed that Hayes had secured the capital’s third MEP seat with a total of 73,405 votes.

Ryan accepted his defeat stoically, pointing out that the Greens had increased their vote

“massively

? even if support for him had just not been strong enough.

“I think it can provide a base to grow further,

? he said.

Hayes, meanwhile, has refused to rule out a return to national politics in five years’ time.

“We’ll have to wait and see; I’m not ruling anything out,

? he told reporters not long after pipping Ryan to the post. This from the same man who has insisted that moving to Brussels would not be like taking his career to

“some kind of outer Mongolia

?. Who was he trying to convince?

His election meanwhile, leaves a vacancy in the Department of Finance and the prospect of a by-election in Dublin South West.

Sitting Independent MEP Nessa Childers has proven her political shrewdness after coasting home to the second seat with a final tally of 73,598 votes.

Childers had been criticised by some as a

“political bed-hopper

? following her dramatic departure from the Labour Party last year, having previously served as a Green Party councillor.

But her flexible allegiances now show her as a canny mover in the political chess game. Childers said she left Labour because she could no longer support a party that blatantly broke its pre-election promises.

It seems she spoke for a wide swathe of disillusioned former Labour supporters, whose support she managed to harness to secure a second term in Brussels.

Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan surged forward on the wave of her party’s nationwide sweep to success, comfortably claiming Dublin’s first MEP seat with 89,764 votes.

Long considered a favourite, it was nonetheless an impressive final tally for the ecologist who failed to get a seat on Kerry County Council in 2009 with a little over 300 votes.

Boylan has insisted that she is not going to Brussels as a Eurosceptic, but as someone prepared to

“stand up for Ireland

? and oppose Troika-led austerity measures.

It was a sad day for outgoing MEPs Emer Costello of Labour and Paul Murphy of the Socialist Party. Murphy’s camp was convinced he suffered from a split in the left wing votes between himself and People Before Profit candidate Bríd Smith.

Smith won 23,875 votes, while Murphy was eliminated with 29,953. It’s thought Murphy will now work towards contesting the next general election.

“This is the beginning – not the end – for me, for the Socialist Party, for the left,

? he said.

“There is a desperate need to build a left in this country and I think I can, hopefully, be a very important party of that.

?

Labour’s Emer Costello had perhaps the most disappointing result – she was eliminated after the fourth count with 27,000 votes.

“Sometimes the wind isn’t with you,

? she told reporters bravely, adding that she was disappointed at how voters had seemed most concerned with local issues.

“We never really got into the real debate on the future of Ireland in Europe and how Europe can be of benefit to Dublin. We didn’t Europeanise the European elections,

? she pointed out.

Another casualty was Fianna Fáil candidate Mary Fitzpatrick. Despite having perhaps the most posters on lampposts of any candidate in either the local or European Dublin elections, she mustered just 50,585 votes and was eliminated after the fifth count.

Two Direct Democracy Ireland candidates were eliminated after the first count, along with the Fís Nua’s Damon Wise and Independent Jim Tallon.