Four Mayo senators in the Seanad

Ciara Galvin

FOLLOWING the recent Seanad election there are now four senators from Mayo, including two from the Erris area.
Sinn Féin’s Rose Conway-Walsh and fellow Belmullet resident Dr Keith Swanick were successfully elected to the twenty-fifth Seanad and join Claremorris native Catherine Noone and Ballyglass man Paddy Burke.
Conway-Walsh was elected to the Agricultural Panel after reaching the quota on the first count while Dr Swanick, a Fianna FΡil candidate was elected to the Cultural and Educational Panel.
Before being elected last week, Conway-Walsh attended the monthly meeting of the Municipal District in Belmullet where tributes were led by the Cathoirleach of Mayo County Council, Cllr Michael Holmes.
The election of the two Erris-based candidates means that the area will have Oireachtas representation from a local resident for the first time since Joe Lenehan lost his DΡil seat in 1973.
Dr Swanick was elected following the eighteenth count of the Cultural and Education Panel, polling 81,000 after the first count. After the first count he was in fourth position but by the nineteenth count, Dr Swanick had leapfrogged the other three candidates to reach the quota with 205,320 votes, to be the second candidate elected.
Dr Swanick, a native of Castlerea, Co Roscommon, moved to Belmullet with his wife, Aislinn and established a medical centre in the area and is actively involved in local community development.
Ms Noone, a solicitor, based in Dublin and a native of Brookhill, was reelected to her seat on the Industrial and Commercial Panel last week. Ms Noone joins Senator Paddy Burke, former Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, who returns to the Seanad for the sixth time after being reelected to the Agricultural Panel. Catherine Noone was in Mayo last weekend, visiting family and attending the Mayo World Convention in Belmullet. She outlined that she is very much looking forward to getting down to business and working hard in the Seanad.