WATCH: Neil Feighery speaks after topping the poll with overwhelming vote in Tullamore
Feighery was first elected to the council back in 2019
Tullamore election poll-topper Neil Feighery has been speaking after tallies put him at just below 2,000 votes in Friday's Local Elections.
The Fine Gael councillor was 600 votes ahead of his nearest challenger, according to tallies, and will be elected on the first count, taking the first of seven seats in the town.
A number of other candidates are very close to the quota figure of around 1,600 in terms of first preference votes and should all get elected over the weekend. They are Frank Moran (FF) on 1,384, Tony McCormack (FF) on 1,329, Sean O'Brien (Ind) on 1,312, Declan Harvey (FF) on 1,237, Aoife Masterson (SF) on 1,236 and Ollie Bryant (FF) on 1,133.
The Fianna Fail candidates will transfer well to one another which will make it very hard for candidates behind Ollie Bryant to make up the difference. Sandy Smollen Feehan is closest on 791 votes based on the complete tally but is almost certainly too far behind Bryant to close the gap.