Dan Mulhall

There's nothing wrong with the man personally in any way, but he wasn't made for this race.

and arguably he should not have been in it.

But you see here that you had a decent Fine Gael candidate in Dublin Central, Ray McAdam, who was never going to make it, by the way.

But this parallels with the presidential election.

If the Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael candidate who is ahead does not have a candidate of the other party behind with sufficient votes to push them over the line, they're not going to get over the line.

No, Micheál Martin's going over.

He has long since managed, almost magically, to channel the weakness of his party into his political strength.

The weaker it is internally, the stronger he is as leader.

It's a dynamic that's hard to explain, but you can touch it, feel it, and sense it.

In relation to the general election, it's likely in three years' time.

None of us have a clue what the world will be like in three years' time, what the context will be, what the issues are.

So extrapolating very much will be very, very, very foolish.

But what I do know for a fact...

is that the next Dáil will be much bigger.

We had 14 extra seats in this Dáil.

We will have about 14 extra seats again in the next Dáil.

We're growing wonderfully at a rate of three TDs a year based on population growth.

And what that wonderful growth... Round of applause, please.

..means that whatever the trend is...

The trend is accentuated.