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Bucking the national trend, Fermoy’s Noel McCarthy (Labour) topped the poll with 3,511 first preference votes. Photo: John Ahern

The Fermoy and Mitchelstown areas fared particularly well in last week's local elections with five out of the six seats being filled by local candidates.

If Labour's Noel McCarthy was ecstatic at having topped the poll, the Fianna Fáil faithful were equally on a high with their three councillors all making it to County Hall.

Cllr McCarthy's overwhelming number of votes came in stark contrast to the national trend with labour candidates getting dumped in favour of their Sinn Fein or Independent counterparts. Sitting Fianna Fail councillors Kevin O'Keeffe and Frank O'Flynn were re-elected on the first and second counts respectively. Then without reaching the quota, their running mate, Charleville's Ian Doyle was followed in by June Murphy (SF) and Kay Dawson (FG). So now, with a 50/50 mix of new and old councillors, it will be interesting to see how they will all fare when it comes to getting things done for people locally.

FIRST PREFERENCES

For the record, poll-topper McCarthy secured a whopping 3,528 first preferences, followed by O'Keeffe with 2,923, O'Flynn 2,457, Doyle 2,206, Murphy 1,675, Dawson 1,618, Browne 988, Roche 743, White 475, McCarthy (Michael) 406, Fouhy 396 and Canon 138.

Going into the polling stations, voters were faced with some of the longest polling sheets in years due to the redrawing of the boundaries and for many, the sheer size of the list meant that they only filled in three or four preferences, while the blank box (where the party logo usually goes) caused a lot of confusion.

With uncertain feelings amongst the public about what the current Government are doing for them, many went into the polling stations on Friday with a view to casting a vote that would force a change in the way the country is run.

Twelve candidates in the Fermoy area were contesting the election and with candidates from Charleville, Killavullen, Castlelyons, Glanworth, Castletownroche, Mitchelstown and Fermoy, voters in this area were particularly fortunate that they now have five county councillors on their doorstep.

Only the meetings over the course of the year will reveal whether or not local issues are being brought onto the council's agenda and if the six councillors are making sure that the voice of the Fermoy Electoral Area is heard both at county council and Government level.

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