Cónal Thomas

And again, another Fianna Fáil member was remarking to me about how Fianna Fáil has a Dublin problem.

And this is coming up.

This is a symptom of it.

And actually, I suppose you're looking at, I'm broadcasting to you live, Conal, from the first constituency ever to not have a government candidate.

Indeed.

So that's what it's tracking up as here, which it's very, it's kind of easy for them to come into this count centre.

Ray McAdam earlier, as you mentioned, the Fianna Gael candidate.

The Fianna Gael, I was going to say, maybe they should conglomerate and make a new name.

But the Fianna Gael candidate, Ray McCadam, came in here earlier and basically was asked straight out, do you think you'll win a seat in the next general?

And he said, yes, plainly.

But I think it's quite, you know, it may be overconfidence slightly to expect that because it's very difficult when you lose a seat to claw it back.

And we saw, we've seen that even with the Green Party here, you know, they're having a good showing, but they're not going to win the seat back that they lost in 2020, or sorry, 2024.

So that's the kind of showing that the government parties have.

Yes, definitely Ray McCadden will have hoped he did better.

He certainly was not in a pleasant mood when he came in here.

And I suppose he put putting it down to that incumbency and that Fianna Gael have been in power and in government for so long.

And that's what he's the challenge there.

But particularly with Fianna Fáil, I mean, this was...

The count staff here back in 1980, whatever, up until 2007, they may as well have phoned it in every election because they knew Bertie was coming out on top.

And I'd say the tally staff here were going, but now when tally staff here were saying Stephens, people were looking through the page to see where is this Fianna Fáil candidate's name because it's coming up so infrequently.