2019 Westmeath County Council election

2019 Westmeath County Council election
All 20 seats on Westmeath County Council; 11 seats needed for a majority
	Results by local electoral area
Council control before election; Fianna Fáil–Fine Gael;	Council control after ; Fianna Fáil–Green Party;

An election to all 20 seats on Westmeath County Council was held on 24 May 2019 as part of the 2019 Irish local elections. County Westmeath was divided into 4 local electoral areas (LEAs) to elect councillors for a five-year term of office on using the electoral system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (PR-STV).

Boundary review

Following the recommendations of the 2018 LEA boundary review committee, the three LEAs used at the 2014 Westmeath County Council election were revised and replaced with four LEAs.^[1]^[2]

Results by party

Fianna Fáil gained one seat in this election, Fine Gael and the Labour Party retained their five and two seats respectively, the Green Party had its first ever two local councillors in Westmeath elected, Sinn Féin lost their representation on this council while two Independent candidates were elected. The smaller parties that ran candidates in Westmeath (Aontú, the Social Democrats and Renua) failed to make any breakthrough.

Party		Seats	±	1st pref	FPv%	±%
	Fianna Fáil	9	1	12,259	36.34	3.44
	Fine Gael	5		7,860	23.30	0.60
	Labour	2		3,469	10.28	3.42
	Green	2	2	1,174	3.48	New
	Sinn Féin	0	3	1,957	5.80	5.30
	Aontú	0		394	1.17	New
	Social Democrats	0		194	0.58	New
	Renua	0		86	0.25	New
	Independent	2		6,344	18.80	0.40
Total		20		33,737	100.00

Results by local electoral area

^ *: Outgoing councillor elected in 2014.
^ †: Outgoing councillor coopted subsequent to the 2014 election.

Athlone

Athlone: 5 seats^[3]
Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
Party		Candidate	FPv%	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
	Fianna Fáil	Frankie Keena^[*]	18.55	1,584
	Fianna Fáil	Aengus O'Rourke^[*]	15.39	1,314	1,374	1,390	1,403	1,437
	Fine Gael	John Dolan^[*]	14.91	1,273	1,298	1,305	1,320	1,335	1,337	1,433
	Independent	Jamie Moran^[a]	12.04	1,028	1,042	1,072	1,089	1,126	1,128	1,167	1,238	1,417	1,420	1,615
	Green	Louise Heavin	6.95	593	604	627	706	729	731	771	864	935	939	1,071
	Fine Gael	Alan Shaw	6.59	563	574	578	594	601	603	623	692	752	754	794
	Sinn Féin	Pádraig Hegarty	6.11	522	528	538	558	567	567	581	605	715	716
	Independent	Paul Hogan^[*]	5.33	455	464	475	481	503	505	530	581
	Independent	Michael O'Brien^[*]	4.03	344	352	363	380	392	394	429
	Independent	P.J. Coghill	3.64	311	318	325	328	347	349
	Aontú	Noel Peter McKervey	2.30	196	198	223	226
	Social Democrats	Fiona Lynam	2.27	194	199	204
	Renua	Anthony Moran	1.01	86	88
	Independent	Imelda Geraghty	0.49	42	42
	Independent	Donal Jackson	0.37	32	33
Electorate: 19,157 Valid: 8,537 Spoilt: 119 Quota: 1,423 Turnout: 8,656

Kinnegad

Kinnegad: 5 seats^[4]
Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
Party		Candidate	FPv%	1	2	3	4	5	6
	Fine Gael	Frank McDermott^[*]	15.16	1,246	1,281	1,303	1,392
	Fianna Fáil	John Shaw^[*]	14.79	1,216	1,244	1,258	1,279	1,322	1,521
	Fianna Fáil	Paddy Hill^[*]	12.41	1,020	1,021	1,048	1,142	1,303	1,434
	Labour	Denis Leonard	12.03	989	1,014	1,020	1,046	1,191	1,314
	Fine Gael	Emily Wallace^[†]	11.12	914	956	973	993	1,122	1,285
	Fianna Fáil	Shauna Coyne	8.41	691	699	710	725	765
	Sinn Féin	Hazel Behan	7.65	629	631	646	749	823	898
	Labour	Lorraine Scally	7.08	582	597	608	698
	Independent	Úna D'Arcy^[*]	5.99	492	502	569
	Independent	Patrick Joseph Boyhan	3.19	262	268
	Fine Gael	Becky Loftus Dore	2.18	179
Electorate: 16,746 Valid: 8,220 Spoilt: 169 Quota: 1,371 Turnout: 8,389

Moate

Moate: 4 seats^[5]
Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
Party		Candidate	FPv%	1	2	3	4
	Fine Gael	Thomas Farrell^[*]	18.48	1,567	1,588	1,806
	Fianna Fáil	Liam McDaniel^[†]	15.68	1,329	1,363	1,528	1,597
	Fianna Fáil	Vinny McCormack	15.49	1,313	1,332	1,358	1,595
	Labour	Johnnie Penrose^[*]	14.89	1,262	1,342	1,474	1,922
	Independent	Michael O'Brien	12.66	1,073	1,199	1,223	1,249
	Fianna Fáil	Brian Crum^[†]	10.05	852	872	899
	Fine Gael	Damien Clear	7.16	607	644
	Sinn Féin	Peter Judge	3.48	295
	Independent	Searlait Cabdi Ní Chianáin	2.12	180
Electorate: 15,319 Valid: 8,478 Spoilt: 165 Quota: 1,696 Turnout: 8,643

Mullingar

Mullingar: 6 seats^[6]
Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
Party		Candidate	FPv%	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
	Independent	Mick Dollard^[*]	15.13	1,286
	Fianna Fáil	Ken Glynn^[*]	14.02	1,192	1,201	1,203	1,217
	Fianna Fáil	Aoife Davitt	10.42	886	891	892	907	907	921	951	1,008	1,059	1,120
	Fianna Fáil	William Patrick Collentine^[†]	10.14	862	872	873	886	888	906	930	979	1,029	1,106
	Fine Gael	Andrew Joseph Duncan^[*]	9.27	788	795	797	811	811	850	880	937	980	1,078
	Fine Gael	Gerard Joseph Heery	8.5	723	728	732	741	741	767	786	831	853	955
	Green	Hazel Smyth	6.83	581	584	591	605	605	655	681	753	860	1,019
	Independent	Sean Lynch	6.25	531	537	545	569	569	611	627	665	742
	Sinn Féin	Sorca Clarke^[*]	6.01	511	518	522	537	537	561	587	616
	Labour	Mark Scally	4.16	354	359	360	363	363	384	487
	Labour	Margaret Lynam Sweeney	3.32	282	290	291	295	295	307
	Independent	Chris Murtagh	2.98	253	256	267	294	294
	Aontú	Séamus Burke	2.33	198	200	205
	Independent	Alice McDonnell	0.65	55	56
Electorate: 19,946 Valid: 8,502 Spoilt: 200 Quota: 1,215 Turnout: 8,702

Footnotes

^ See change below.

Results by gender

2019 Westmeath County Council election^[7]^[8] Candidates by gender
Gender	Number of candidates	% of candidates	Elected councillors	% of councillors
Men	34	69.4%	16	80.0%
Women	15	30.6%	4	20.0%
TOTAL	49		20

Changes after 2019

Party		Outgoing	LEA	Reason	Date	Co-optee
	Independent	Jamie Moran	Athlone	Resignation	January 2022	Paul Hogan^[9]

Changes in affiliation

Name	LEA	Elected as		New affiliation		Date
Paul Hogan	Athlone		Independent		Independent Ireland	April 2024^[10]

References

Sources

"Westmeath County Council - Local Election candidates". RTÉ. 13 May 2019. Archived from the original on 6 June 2019. Retrieved 15 May 2019.
"Elections 2019". Westmeath County Council. Archived from the original on 4 September 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
"Elections 2019; How the Voting Went". The Westmeath Examiner. 1 June 2019. pp. 6–7.
"Local Elections 2019: Results, Transfer of Votes and Statistics" (PDF). Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government (DHPLG). pp. 208–212. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 June 2020. Retrieved 10 June 2020.

Citations

^ Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee No. 1 (13 June 2018). Report 2018 (PDF). Government Publications. pp. 114–117, 165. ISBN 978-1-4064-2990-9. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 April 2023. Retrieved 8 May 2019.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ County of Westmeath Local Electoral Areas Order 2018 (S.I. No. 636 of 2018). Signed on 19 December 2018 by John Paul Phelan, Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. Statutory Instrument of the Government of Ireland. Archived from the original on 2 February 2019. Retrieved from Irish Statute Book on 8 May 2019.
^ DHPLG 2019, p. 208–209.
^ DHPLG 2019, p. 210.
^ DHPLG 2019, p. 211.
^ DHPLG 2019, p. 212.
^ "Westmeath County Council: Greens surprise with two seats". The Irish Times. Dublin. 27 May 2019 [25 May 2019]. Archived from the original on 20 June 2021.
^ DHPLG 2019, p. 247.
^ "Former OPW Minister Misses Out On Westmeath County Council Seat". Midlands 103 Radio. Archived from the original on 24 January 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
^ Cusack, Adrian (15 April 2024). "Paul Hogan to run in Athlone and Moate areas for new Independent Ireland party". Westmeath Independent.

[change-4] See change below.

[1] Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee No. 1 (13 June 2018). Report 2018 (PDF). Government Publications. pp. 114–117, 165. ISBN 978-1-4064-2990-9. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 April 2023. Retrieved 8 May 2019.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

[2] County of Westmeath Local Electoral Areas Order 2018 (S.I. No. 636 of 2018). Signed on 19 December 2018 by John Paul Phelan, Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. Statutory Instrument of the Government of Ireland. Archived from the original on 2 February 2019. Retrieved from Irish Statute Book on 8 May 2019.

[FOOTNOTEDHPLG2019208–209-3] DHPLG 2019, p. 208–209.

[FOOTNOTEDHPLG2019210-5] DHPLG 2019, p. 210.

[FOOTNOTEDHPLG2019211-6] DHPLG 2019, p. 211.

[FOOTNOTEDHPLG2019212-7] DHPLG 2019, p. 212.

[irishtimes-le19-westmeath-coco-report-9] "Westmeath County Council: Greens surprise with two seats". The Irish Times. Dublin. 27 May 2019 [25 May 2019]. Archived from the original on 20 June 2021.

[FOOTNOTEDHPLG2019247-10] DHPLG 2019, p. 247.

[11] "Former OPW Minister Misses Out On Westmeath County Council Seat". Midlands 103 Radio. Archived from the original on 24 January 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2022.

[12] Cusack, Adrian (15 April 2024). "Paul Hogan to run in Athlone and Moate areas for new Independent Ireland party". Westmeath Independent.

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