THERE WILL BE two Healy-Rae brothers in the 32nd Dáil.
Michael Healy-Rae was returned to the Dáil in the Kerry constituency yesterday afternoon – and he will now be accompanied by brother Danny.
The independent candidates had adopted a canny strategy of dividing up the constituency for supporters, asking for voters in specific parishes to vote No 1 for one brother and No 2 for the other – and to reverse that pattern in other areas.
Michael Healy-Rae had a stunning win in the first count yesterday, capturing over 7,000 votes more than the quota. He took 20,378 first preferences – the quota was 13,213.
Danny Healy-Rae was elected on the second count with a total of 13,826 votes after transfers. He had had 9,991 votes in the first count.
This was this morning:
This was yesterday:
This was the map published by the Healy-Raes in local newspapers during the election campaign, asking voters to assist with their election strategy:
They followed this up with an outreach on social media:
The strategy paid off handsomely, with Danny Healy-Rae saying yesterday that the brothers made “no apologies to anyone for representing the people of Kerry”. He said:
There’s been a lot of talk of representing the nation and that we’re not good for the nation, but the people of Kerry are part of the nation. And we’ll have to fight for those people and we make no apologies for that.
On his re-election yesterday, Michael Healy-Rae had a warning for the “smart alecs” in Dublin now that the brothers would be joining forces in the Dáil.
Some of the smart alecs in Dublin who may have picked on me in the past. Well, you know what? They’ll have to pick through him to get to me.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say