2014 Westmeath County Council election

2014 Westmeath County Council election

23 May 2014
All 20 seats on Westmeath County Council 11 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Party Fianna Fáil Fine Gael Sinn Féin Seats before 9 8 0 Seats won 8 5 3 Seat change 1 3 3   Fourth party Fifth party   Party Labour Independent Seats before 6 0 Seats won 2 2 Seat change 4 2
Area of Westmeath County Council

An election to all 20 seats on Westmeath County Council took place on 23 May 2014 as part of the 2014 Irish local elections, a reduction from 23 seats at the 2009 election. The town councils of Athlone and Mullingar were also abolished. County Westmeath was divided into three local electoral areas (LEAs) to elect councillors for a five-year term of office on the electoral system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (PR-STV).

Fianna Fáil emerged as the largest party after the elections as both government parties suffered at the polls. Labour lost two-thirds of their Councillors being reduced to just 2 seats while Fine Gael also lost 3 seats. Sinn Féin won seats on the council for the first time, 3 in total, and were joined by 2 Independents.^[1][2]

Results by party

Party		Seats	±	1st pref	FPv%	±%
	Fianna Fáil	8	1	11,412	32.9	11.03
	Fine Gael	5	3	8,310	23.9	14.85
	Sinn Féin	3	3	3,837	11.1	6.44
	Labour	2	4	4,766	13.7	12.38
	Independent	2	2	6,391	18.4	13.16
Total		20	3	34,716	100.0	—

Results by local electoral area

^ *: Outgoing councillor.

Athlone

Athlone: 7 seats

Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
				1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
	Independent	Kevin "Boxer" Moran[*]†	21.78	2,897
	Fine Gael	Tom Farrell	11.29	1,502	1,552	1,561	1,594	1,616	1,648	1,649	1,724
	Sinn Féin	Paul Hogan††††††	10.70	1,423	1,684
	Fine Gael	John Dolan[*]	8.16	1,085	1,139	1,146	1,161	1,193	1,239	1,240	1,345	1,681
	Fianna Fáil	Aengus O'Rourke	7.88	1,048	1,256	1,267	1,306	1,357	1,387	1,392	1,494	1,636
	Fianna Fáil	Frankie Keena[*]	7.77	1,034	1,200	1,213	1,255	1,317	1,373	1,377	1,520	1,648
	Fianna Fáil	Vinny McCormack	7.27	967	983	985	991	1,001	1,010	1,010	1,080	1,088
	Independent	Michael O'Brien	6.85	911	1,001	1,054	1,084	1,113	1,203	1,208	1,354	1,418
	Fine Gael	Alan Shaw	5.43	722	817	829	838	883	899	902	911
	Fianna Fáil	Tom Allen[*]	4.86	647	674	684	716	733	767	769
	Labour	Jim Henson	2.37	315	388	410	428
	Independent	Joe Devery	2.35	313	394	429	476	527
	Independent	P.J. Coghill	2.08	277	312	333
	Independent	John McNamara	0.90	120	171
	Independent	Donal Jackson	0.31	41	68
Electorate: 22,759   Valid: 13,302 (52.60%)   Spoilt: 157   Quota: 1,663   Turnout: 13,459 (53.22%)

Mullingar–Coole

Mullingar-Coole: 7 seats

Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
				1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
	Fianna Fáil	Aidan Davitt[*]†††	12.90	1,492
	Sinn Féin	Una D'arcy†††††††	12.86	1,487
	Fianna Fáil	John Shaw[*]	11.02	1,275	1,287	1,290	1,307	1,331	1,404	1,588
	Fianna Fáil	Paddy Hill[*]	10.44	1,207	1,215	1,220	1,241	1,308	1,326	1,342	1,357
	Fine Gael	Frank McDermott[*]	10.06	1,163	1,164	1,167	1,195	1,249	1,372	1,414	1,428
	Fine Gael	Peter Burke[*]††	8.72	1,008	1,015	1,017	1,031	1,135	1,391	1,534
	Labour	Mick Dollard[*]	8.21	950	956	960	992	1,025	1,062	1,268	1,312
	Labour	Denis Leonard[*]	6.24	722	723	724	749	835	895
	Independent	Brian Fagan	5.86	678	684	695	849	888	951	1,057	1,078
	Fine Gael	Emily Wallace	5.42	627	630	631	660	731
	Labour	Peter Kearney	4.50	520	521	522	563	563
	Labour	Rachel Grimes	1.47	170	170	172	172
	Independent	Angela Maher	1.23	142	143	146	146
	Independent	Pat Holmes	0.72	83	83	86	86
	Independent	Rosemary Horan	0.36	42	42	44	44
Electorate: 22,759   Valid: 11,566 (50.82%)   Spoilt: 205   Quota: 1,446   Turnout: 11,771 (51.72%)

Mullingar-Kilbeggan

Mullingar–Kilbeggan: 6 seats

Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
				1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
	Fianna Fáil	Paul Daly[*]††††	15.25	1,502
	Fianna Fáil	Avril Whitney[*]†††††	12.86	1,266	1,277	1,288	1,295	1,348	1,376	1,405	1,428
	Fianna Fáil	Ken Glynn[*]	9.89	974	992	1,011	1,023	1,058	1,068	1,114	1,133	1,138	1,207
	Labour	Johnnie Penrose[*]	9.58	943	952	968	1,029	1,083	1,169	1,369	1,488
	Sinn Féin	Sorca Clarke	9.41	927	932	962	976	987	1,022	1,048	1,073	1,075	1,154
	Fine Gael	Andrew Duncan	8.04	792	797	805	827	909	937	999	1,144	1,165	1,432
	Fine Gael	Colm Arthur[*]	6.05	596	603	609	637	660	669	696	834	857
	Independent	Brian Fagan	5.93	584	587	733	744	765	793	876	891	903	974
	Fine Gael	Michael Newman	4.78	471	487	489	569	622	635	653	653
	Labour	Detty Cornally[*]	4.77	470	471	485	516	535	587	587
	Labour	Gerry Sheridan	3.87	381	382	390	398	401	401
	Fine Gael	Chris Murtagh	3.49	344	344	350	354
	Labour	Ger Corcoran[*]	3.00	295	312	312
	Independent	Chris Burley	1.65	162	163
	Independent	Angela Maher	1.43	141	142
Electorate: 20,021   Valid: 9,848 (49.19%)   Spoilt: 161   Quota: 1,407   Turnout: 10,009 (49.99%)

Changes

• † Athlone Independent Cllr Kevin "Boxer" Moran was elected to the 32nd Dáil for Longford–Westmeath at the 2016 general election. Ailish McManus was co-opted to fill the vacancy on 21 March 2016.[1]
• †† Mullingar–Coole Fine Gael Cllr Peter Burke was elected to the 32nd Dáil for Longford–Westmeath at the 2016 general election. Emily Wallace was co-opted to fill the vacancy on 21 March 2016.[2]
• ††† Mullingar–Coole Fianna Fáil Cllr Aidan Davitt was elected to the 25th Seanad in April 2016. Bill Collentine was co-opted to fill the vacancy on 13 June 2016.[3]
• †††† Mullingar–Kilbeggan Fianna Fáil Cllr Paul Daly was elected to Seanad Éireann in April 2016. Liam McDaniel was co-opted to fill the vacancy on 13 June 2016.[4]
• ††††† Mullingar–Kilbeggan Fianna Fáil Cllr Avril Whitney resigned her seat for personal reasons on 31 May 2017.[5] In September 2017 Brian Crum was co-opted to fill the vacancy.[6] Archived 2018-01-22 at the Wayback Machine
• †††††† Athlone Sinn Féin Cllr Paul Hogan resigned from the party and became an Independent on 30 July 2018 saying the party had isolated and ostracised him since October 2015.[7]
• ††††††† Mullingar–Coole Sinn Féin Cllr Una D'Arcy resigned from the party and became an Independent on 22 January 2019 saying that she didn't have the support she needed and that she didn't align with its views.[8]

References

1. "Westmeath: First result in – FF win first seat on Westmeath County Council". Irish Independent. 24 May 2014. Retrieved 24 May 2014.
2. "Westmeath County Council Local elections". Irish Independent. 24 May 2014. Archived from the original on 17 June 2014. Retrieved 17 June 2014.