Melissa Byrne happy with Aontú showing

Aontu’s candidate Melissa Byrne was satisfied with her party’s showing despite being eliminated on the eight count in Kildare South.

She said: “I think that overall it's been a good performance. A very good showing because the party was set up in 2020, you're constantly building the brand recognition, so I think you're always building a base from there.”

 Ms Byrne added: “When you're going around canvassing, you suddenly realise how much work there actually is to do in your community. It was very good during the local elections, because even though I wasn't elected, the party was very good at following up on queries that people had. So I still have a lot of those emails to sort of sort through after this election.” The young Kilcullen woman remains interested in running again.

After garnering 1,677 first preference votes, the young Kilcullen woman remains interested in running again.

She said: “Before the next local or general elections, it’s going to be four and a half years. So it's hard to predict where you're going to be. There's so much work to still do in the community. I think that the support that I've gotten so far is an indication from people that they are responding to our message.”