Count centre, Moate: Sunday morning update

Counting is under way at the count centre in Moate, having failed to start yesterday after the arrival of the boxes of votes from Athlone was delayed.

The first count is expected at around 1pm, and it is very quiet in the count centre as the top-class tallying job undertaken yesterday when the votes were opened in Athlone has already made clear who the winners and losers are likely to be.

One candidate set to become a councillor for the first time is unlikely to be here today.

Vinny McCormack, poised for election in the Moate LEA will be probably spending much of the day with in the delivery ward at Mullingar hospital after his wife, who is pregnant with their first child, was admitted last night.

The indications are in Westmeath that Fianna Fáil will gain one seat, to take its tally to 9; Fine Gael will go up one to 6; Sinn Féin – which won three seats last time out, but which was down to one due to resignations – will likely have zero representation; Labour had two seats and will still have two; the number of Independents was 2 and will be at least 2.

That leaves just one seat in the air, and with a battle in Athlone between the Green Party’s Louise Heavin, Fine Gael’s Alan Shaw, Sinn Fein’s Padraig Hegarty and Independent candidate, Paul Hogan, who won a seat for Sinn Féin last time out but who resigned the party alleging bullying.