Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice is a shoe in to be returned to his seat, leading the tallies in Roscommon-Galway
Fitzmaurice is currently the clear leader in Roscommon-Galway with 6,431 votes as 54 boxes have been tallied and 86 remain to be counted.
This put the popular rural Independent in a very strong position before transfers have even come into play.
Not far behind him is fellow Independent Denis Naughten who currently holds 5,413 votes and is also likely to be happy with his performance.
The third seat in the constituency is still uncertain. Sinn Féin’s Claire Kerrane is currently polling very well with 4,259 votes.
But will she be able to hold onto that lead against outgoing Fianna Fáil TD Eugene Murphy who is trying to creep up behind with 2,897 votes.
The constituency has been dominated by Independents, which have taken a combined 48% of the vote so far.
Fianna Fáil will also be happy that they are outperforming Fine Gale more than two to one here, taking 19.23% of the vote so far to FG’s 9.4%.
Down the tally the National Party hasn’t claimed even 1 percent of first preference votes, currently at 0.78%.
Not doing much better are People Before Profit at 0.99% and Aontú with 1.07%.
PBP were hit with a late scandal as their candidate for Galway West Joe Loughnane was suspended from the party after allegations emerged that he had been physically aggressive in an incident with a young woman.
