Padraig O'Sullivan has retained Fianna Fáil’s seat in Cork North-Central after topping the poll in this weekend’s by-election.
Mr O’Sullivan was elected following the tenth count after receiving 28% of first-preference votes.
In the end, he topped the poll with 11,633 votes.
Sinn Féin's Thomas Gould came in second with 8,044 votes.
Mr Gould benefited from transfer votes to overtake Colm Burke of Fine Gael who was eliminated on the ninth count.
Mr Gould won 19.7% of the first preference vote compared to Mr Burke of Fine Gael with 21.1%.
Turnout in the constituency was consistently low with the three other by-elections with 30% of voters casting their ballot.
However, one box from Bishopstown being completely empty despite 21 people being eligible to vote.
🗳ELECTED🗳
Fianna Fail’s Pádraig O’Sullivan has been elected as a TD in Cork North Central after the 10th count #BE19 pic.twitter.com/GYh47PIhZ1— Stephen Murphy (@StephenMNews) November 30, 2019
Mr O'Sullivan took the second seat in this weekend's by-elections after Sinn Féin's Mark Ward was elected in the Dublin Mid-West constituency.
Following the result, he said he was delighted with the outcome.
He said: "Five years ago when I became a County Councillor, I would have aspired to hopefully get here but I never thought it would happen so soon and I'm grateful for everybody's support."
Mr O’Sullivan takes over the constituency seat from fellow party member Billy Kellher who was elected as an MEP in May’s elections.
Earlier, Mr Kelleher said the campaign had been quite low-key.
He said: “By-elections, by their nature and just so close to a general election which is inevitable over the next number of months, I don’t believe there was as much bite in them, they were low-key from a national perspective.
“And the public know full well there will be an opportunity to pass their judgement in an election next year.”
