Fitzmaurice returned to Dáil in Roscommon Galway first count

Micheal Fitzmaurice has been re-elected as a TD for the Roscommon Galway constituency, his total vote of 12,002 seeing him cross the line on the first count.

Speaking with the Westmeath Independent, while he expressed his pleasure at the result, he said his “thoughts were with the Naughten family” following the recent death of John Naughten, who had been selected by Fine Gael to run for the constituency.

“There was a shadow over this election,” he said, saying that canvassing in the constituency had taken place under difficult circumstances.

Fitzmaurice went on to thank his team and “all the foot soldiers” who he said had put in a lot of work to get him elected.

When asked if he had any doubts about his chances in this election, he noted that a large chunk of his potential voters had been lost due to the redrawing of the constituency.

“We lost about four and a half thousand votes.”

While he was widely expected in the run-up to the election to get re-elected, he said “you can never be certain any time going in front of the electorate.”

With heavy downpours outside the count centre ahead of the first count, Fitzmaurice said he was also thinking of the people living around Lough Funshinagh, which was an issue that he had highlighted in his campaign after frequent severe flooding in the area in recent years.

“That's a situation that's not right. Those people have suffered over the past few years, and it's not right. It's something that needs to be fixed as soon as possible.”

He added that Lough Funshinagh was also an issue for Claire Kerrane and Martin Daly, the two candidates with the second and third highest tallies, so they would all work to keep the issue in focus.

The Glinsk native had his election confirmed in the first count shortly after 8pm on Saturday, with some of his supporters hoisting him up on their shoulders as the rest, including MEP Ciaran Mullooly and Nigel Dineen, cheered him on.

Their wait over for this election, the group soon left the count centre in Hyde Centre, Roscommon, to continue their celebrations elsewhere.