BREAKING: Final two seats filled in Mayo General Election constituency
Keira Keogh and Paul Lawless have taken the final two seats. Photos by: John Corless
Fine Gael's Keira Keogh and Aontú's Paul Lawless have taken the final two seats in the Mayo constituency of this year's General Election.
They join Sinn Féin's Rose Conway-Walsh, Fine Gael's Alan Dillon and Fianna Fáil's Dara Calleary as all three retained their seats.
Retiring TD Michael Ring, who endorsed Westport-based candidate Keogh, arrived alongside her at the TF today.
Speaking to the , Keogh paid tribute to the role that Ring played in her election campaign.
“Michael Ring is a veteran at this and when he rang me up and said he was confident I could do this, that gave me confidence. I didn’t focus on today at all, I just focused on knocking on as many doors as possible,” she said.
Keogh said she is feeling ‘immense pressure’ to fill the shoes of the long-serving TD but is confident she can hit the ground running.
"The work starts on Monday, the phone calls will start coming. Every morning when the alarm would go off early, I would visualise the doors of Michael’s constituency office staying closed and that got me out of bed fairly lively,” she said.
Ms Keogh was unsuccessful in her bid to be elected to Mayo County Council in the local elections in June but she said this never deterred her from pursuing a seat in the Dáil in this election.
“I was really pleased with the Council election when you consider that there were two Fine Gael candidates living within two kilometres of each other and the strong desire in Louisburgh for a community-based councillor. I was really proud and it didn’t deter me from this,” she said.
Meanwhile, Lawless, who was also successful in the recent local election, thanked the people of Mayo for giving him their vote.
He told the that the transfers were key to his success.
“It was always going to be very important in this campaign with so many candidates, many of them poll-topping councillors in their LEAs, it was a really strong field and we felt if we could stay in the race in terms of number 1s, that would be really important,” he said.
“We’ve taken votes across Mayo and have been unusual in that sense in Mayo. I think the people of Mayo and of the country want to see an opposition that holds the Government to account and that is what we will do if we are in opposition.”
However, he said the party is eager to enter Government and he would like to see them engage in formation talks in the days ahead.
“We want to be in Government as a junior coalition party to ensure that the issues that were so prevalent in this campaign and over the last number of years around housing and the health crisis and the cost of living are dealt with.
“This is a historic day for Aontú to have made the breakthrough at two consecutive elections in Mayo. It does show there is an appetite for a common-sense party.”
