Gary Gannon

No, we're not counting our chickens at all.

But we are absolutely delighted with the tally and the outcome of what was the tally and putting us in first place on first preferences.

I mean, that's a big endorsement of the type of politics the Social Democrats have stood over.

And it's a big endorsement of the type of campaign that Daniel has ran.

It's one that's stood true to authenticity, values, and people have bought into that.

And we are genuinely delighted.

Look, we've been having a good look at the different transfer patterns that are happening.

We're quite clearly more favourable when it comes from the Greens, Labour, PPP.

But Daniel's getting, like he got votes in every box, he's also getting transfers from all of the different candidates too.

So yeah, the pattern continues there.

But as I said, we won't count our chickens before the hatch at this point, but we are very happy with the forced tally.

Tell us a little bit about the history of Daniel.

So Daniel is somebody who I've known for a very long time.

We used to play football against each other.

But I've known him kind of through his role as an adult in terms of working with Eastwall Besbra as the chairperson of that club.

Look, when all of the issues happened down in Eastwall with protests, and it would have been on your own shows talking about that, Daniel was a real leader down there in terms of trying to unite a community and bring it together.

And that was the point where I actually asked him to get involved politically.

He was campaigning to get a

a pitch redeveloped down the Alfie Bourne Road and I remember just saying to him down there when he was asking me for support I was like why don't you do it yourself why don't you get involved become a councillor in the council elections in a year's time and you know it was the first time I think anyone had ever said that to him and that was nearly three years ago and you know every day almost every day since we've been working closely together just around helping people in the north inner city in Dublin central and Daniel has just blown me away in terms of how he's taken to politics because

I mean, the last couple of weeks have been tough, but I mean, the guy and his authenticity just shone through.