LAST UPDATE | 4 hrs ago

INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE BRIAN Stanley has been elected in Laois on the eight count after the elimination of a Sinn Féin candidate – after leaving the party just last month. 

Stanley was 58 votes shy of the quota but was elected as all other candidates vying for the third and final seat were eliminated. The final elimination, Sinn Féin candidate Maria McCormack, allowed Stanley to be elected alongside Fianna Fáil candidate Seán Fleming.

Brian Stanley is the final TD to be elected in Laois.

He missed out on the quota by 58 votes, but was deemed elected by the Returning Officer. pic.twitter.com/Du9yrPn03i

— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) December 1, 2024

Speaking on RTÉ News this afternoon following his election, Stanley said that a “huge group of women came out to help me” with his campaign, and said they he had been met with a good response on the doorsteps.

He told RTÉ that he had his own doubts about running as an Independent candidate initially, but within an hour of canvassing, knew he was “doing the right thing.”

Of his plans in the Dáil, Stanley said that he was an Independent Republican and “totally independent”. He said that as a “progressive left Republican, I would be seeing who I can coalesce with”. 

“Sinn Féin won’t be in government, that’s a dead cert,” he said, and added that Independent TDs will have to push the issues that matter to their electorates. 

Yesterday, Fine Gael’s Willie Aird was elected on count 5 in the same constituency – after 45 years as a councillor.

Stanley was a high-profile TD for Sinn Féin. He was the Chairman of the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee until his resignation from the party in October after a fallout stemming from an internal investigation the party was carrying out after a complaint was made against Stanley at the end of July “by a longstanding member of the party”. 

The complaint was not criminal, party leader Mary Lou McDonald said at the time, but said was “very, very serious”. McDonald told the Dáil that the matter had been referred to gardaí after Stanley raised a counter-complaint. 

Stanley has been a TD for Laois-Offaly since 2011. He was first elected to Laois County Council in 1999.

Stanley deemed it a “kangaroo court” at the time and announced that he would be leaving the party after 40 years of membership.