Adams on course to win seat in Louth
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has arrived in the Louth constituency count centre where unofficial tallies of votes showed he was set to comfortably win a seat.
It will be much later today that the result is confirmed, but a win would endorse the decision of the former West Belfast MP to make the political move south to lead his party’s General Election campaign as a candidate in the contest.
Mr Adams said he believed Sinn Féin was set to double its representation in the Dáil where it won four seats in 2007, before it added a fifth in the Donegal South West by-election last November.
The Sinn Féin president said: “We set ourselves the target of, if possible, doubling our representation in the Dáil and of setting down a very firm foundation in constituencies throughout the state.
“I think we are on course to do that.
“But we will have to see. All the votes haven’t been counted yet.”
He congratulated Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny on the prospect of becoming Taoiseach.
“If Enda becomes Taoiseach, I wish him well,” said Mr Adams.
“We will support him when he is doing things that we think are good and progressive, and we will oppose him tooth and nail when he is doing things that are not in the common good.”
Later, Mr Adams appeared set to top the poll in Louth.
Tallies calculated ahead of the official results showed he had won 22% of support, 2% clear of his nearest rival, Fine Gael’s Fergus O’Dowd.
In 2007 Sinn Féin feared losing its Louth seat, before the party’s Arthur Morgan seized the last Dáil position in the constituency.
The tallies suggested Mr Adams was set to turn that result around by becoming the first TD elected for the border county in the 2011 poll.
