Sitting MEPs Luke Ming Flanagan and Billy Kelleher are closing in on the quota in their respective constituencies as counting in the European Parliament election slowly but surely approaches the final run-in.
In Ireland South, there are only seven candidates remaining to fill four out of the five seats, with Seán Kelly already re-elected on the first election count.
Of the remaining seats, Kelleher is ploughing ahead of the other candidates, and is now only about 8,500 votes off the quota after 16 counts.
Behind him, Sinn Féin’s Kathleen Funchion has overtaken independent Michael McNamara. However, the two are neck-and-neck, with only just over 1,000 votes between them, If they both get a seat, it would mean two new MEPs for this constituency.
If they were elected, the final seat would be fought out for by two sitting MEPs, namely Mick Wallace (Independents 4 Change) and Grace O’ Sullivan (Green Party), as well as Fianna Fáil’s Cynthia Ní Mhurchú. There is less than 4,000 votes between these candidates.
One of those chasing a seat, however, is not former Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) general secretary Eddie Punch; the Independent Ireland candidate was eliminated at the 14th count.
He had earlier seen a bump through transfers from eliminated Aontú candidate Patrick Murphy, which allowed Punch to overtake the two candidates ahead of him.
However, when those two candidates, who represented Sinn Féin and Labour, were eliminated, their transfers did not benefit Punch, preventing him from progressing any further.
In the Ireland Midlands–North-West election constituency meanwhile (where there have also been 16 counts), Flanagan is less than 10,000 votes off the quota, and is polling 20,000 votes ahead of the candidate in second place.
That second place candidate is Maria Walsh, who has done well on transfers, allowing her to overtake both her party colleague Nina Carberry and Fianna Fáil’s Barry Cowen.
However, at the moment, both Carberry (with just over 82,000 votes) and Cowen (with just shy of 79,000 votes) are not in any danger of missing out on a seat each.
Independent Ireland’s Ciaran Mullooly is in pole position to take the fifth and final seat. With some 71,000 votes, he is over 16,000 votes ahead of Peadar Tóibín from Aontú and Michelle Gildernew from Sinn Féin.
However, sitting MEP Chris MacManus is set to be eliminated in due course, and his transfers could provide a significant boost to Gildernew. So it’s not impossible that the former Northern Ireland agriculture minister could launch a challenge for a seat.