It’s now pretty much a two-way battle between Hutch and Labour’s Marie Sherlock for the fourth seat in the constituency.

With all boxes now tallied in the Dublin Central constituency, Independent candidate Gerard Hutch looks likely to be in contention for a seat with around 9% of first preference votes.

SINN FÉIN LEADER Mary Lou McDonald has been re-elected in Dublin Central. She was elected on the third count at the RDS this evening with 7,388 votes. Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe (5,590) looks set to take the second seat with Gary Gannon of the Social Democrats (4,

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald will top the poll on around 20pc it appears, followed by Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe on around 17pc. Gary Gannon of the Social Democrats is polling in third place at 13pc followed by Hutch on 9pc.

People across Ireland went to the polls on Friday to vote in the 2024 General Election. A lot has changed since we last went to the polls nearly five years ago. We have survived a global pandemic, saw Donald Trump re-elected US President and watched as two wars broke out.

Irish voters are heading to the polls on Friday to elect a new Government, with the two centre parties which have run the country for more than a century and been in coalition together for the past 4 years – vying to stay in power.

The counting is now underway for all Dublin City constituencies, including Dublin South-Central. The Dublin City returning officer Joseph Burke has announced the opening of the ballot boxes at 9am in the RDS. The count centre in the Simmonscourt Pavilion is getting busier as the tallymen keep an eye on the first-preference votes.

The convicted Dublin criminal, also known as The Monk, received the fourth-highest first preference vote in the four-seat constituency with almost 10 per cent of the vote