Mayo councillor faces nervous wait in Seanad Elections

A MAYO councillor faces an anxious wait today to see if he will be successful in his attempt to be elected to Seanad Éireann.

Ballina-based Fine Gael councillor Mark Duffy is the only Mayo-based candidate running in this year's Seanad Elections with counting going on to elect the Oireachtas members over the weekend.

Cllr Duffy, who ran for Fine Gael in November's General Election, is one of 19 candidates standing in the Labour panel where eleven seats are up for grabs. The race for the eleven seats is expected to be wide open with just five of the eleven sitting senators seeking reelection.

There are five vocational panels where 43 of the 60 Seanad seats are elected with members of the incoming Dáil, members of the outgoing Seanad and members of county councils and city councils all eligible to vote in them. There are eleven seats each to be filled on the Agricultural and Labour Panels, nine on the Industrial and Commercial Panel, seven on the Administrative Panel and five on the Cultural and Education Panel.

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Counting is currently ongoing in the Agricultural Panel where after 16 counts just four candidates have been elected and counting is expected to resume in the RDS in Dublin at around 9.30am. Once that count is completed, the count on the Labour Panel will begin which is estimated to start around lunchtime.

The total electorate is made up of Dáil deputies, outgoing senators and city and county councillors and for counting purposes each vote is multiplied by 1,000. The quota in the Labour panel is expected to be around 95,000.