Carroll unlikely to make County Hall comeback

By Siobhán Holliman

FORMER County Mayor Liam Carroll is unlikely to be making a comeback at County Hall.

Early tallies from the Athenry-Oranmore area show that the Fine Gael candidate hasn’t polled as strongly as he’d hoped in areas outside of his home area of Oranmore. Carroll lost his seat in 2014 when he was contesting the election while Mayor of County Galway.

Nearly half of the area’s boxes have been opened and tallied, but as most of these are from one side of the constituency it’s difficult to predict a full picture of the outcome.

Independent James Charity swept the board in his home area of Annaghdown, but not all of the Claregalway boxes have been sorted. He’s expected to gather more votes here.

With areas such as Oranmore, Annaghdown, Coolarne, Lackagh and Carnmore tallied, the outcome is looking good for Independent Jim Cuddy who along with Charity look set to retain their seats.

Fine Gael’s David Collins will be pleased with his performance so far and has done very well, as expected, in Lackagh boxes.

None of the Athenry boxes have been tallied yet and these will show how former Sinn Fein Cllr Gab Cronnelly is doing who is now running as an independent.

There are seven seats to fill in this area and a number of outgoing councillors aren’t contesting this time round, including FG’s Peter Feeney and Frank Kearney.

Political pundits in the count centre are predicting Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to take two seats each and three going to independents.