'It's about turning up' - 'Ming' Flanagan on the current polls for the European count

Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan told reporters in Castlebar at the Midlands-North-West count that it looks like he and Barry Cowen will be the top two after the first count.

The incumbent independent has polled strongly, and does look set to retain his seat in European Parliament.

The popular Roscommon man attributed his apparent success to a fervent campaign.

"I managed to get to 238 towns, and called into about 5000 different businesses and countless people," Flanagan said. "Some people think that in a constituency this size, it's all about television. It's all about social media.

"Of course, what it's really about is turning up in smaller places. And if you keep going to many enough different towns, eventually the message comes across, you're the only one that comes around here. And because of that, you will obviously stand by your word, so people say "we're gonna stand by you"."

Speaking to reporters, Flanagan added that he believed Aontú's Peadar Tóibín and Independent Ireland's Ciaran Mullooly seem to be “neck and neck”.

Asked on the performance of government and opposition parties, Flanagan disregarded talk of SInn Féin "collapsing".

"I wouldn’t rule out Sinn Féin doing very, very well in the next general election," he said. Flanagan added that that the results so far might make Fine Gael "complacent and deluded as to the idea that Simon Harris is some sort of saviour and I think the general election will show he isn’t".

Discussing the local elections, Flanagan remarked that "it's brilliant that barely any extreme-right candidates have been elected".

"Even better, many of our new Irish people of colour have gone out and got elected and they've hammered the far-right," Flanagan added.

"The message is, Ireland as a tolerant place but one thing Ireland isn’t tolerant about is a lack of housing, a lack of healthcare, a lack of teachers in our schools, and we need to resolve that."