Sinn Féin pulled off the rare feat of winning two seats in a constituency; on this occasion in Waterford. It was built on the back of established poll-topper David Cullinane maximising his vote in Waterford city while Cllr Conor McGuinness had a free run in the western half of the county. They were rewarded by being the only party to run two candidates.

Out-going independent TD Matt Shanahan was almost 1,000 votes behind after the final count – a losing margin suggesting his laser display of an election ad on the gable end of a building at University Hospital Waterford may be a factor in his loss.

For Fine Gael there was pressure from party headquarters to recover the seat the party lost in 2020, when it ran two candidates and split the vote. This time Senator John Cummins upped his vote by about 10 per cent in the city and Tramore and comfortably won the second seat. Minister of State Mary Butler (FF) was close behind taking the third seat.

It was clear Mary Roche of the Social Democrats’ vote would be critical on the fate of the last seat; whether it would transfer based on geography or politics. In the end it was the latter, as sufficient green/left transfers got McGuinness across the line.