By Dionne Meehan
SINN FÉIN’S Pearse Doherty has praised the performance of his fellow party member Cllr Noel Jordan despite losing out on one of the five seats in the Donegal constituency at the weekend.
Similar to their strategy in 2016, Sinn Féin selected three candidates to contest this year’s general election.
Cllr Noel Jordan was chosen to go forward to stand for the party along with Deputy Pádraig MacLochlainn and Deputy Pearse Doherty.
A native of Inver, he resides in Mountcharles with his wife and two children and has represented the Donegal LEA for over ten years, having been elected on three occasions.
Romping to victory with 18,898 first preference votes, Deputy Doherty topped the poll on Saturday and was first to secure a seat in Dáil Éireann. It followed his memorable success in the 2020 General Elections when the recurring poll topper secured 21,000 first preference votes.
Next to be elected was Deputy MacLochlainn. The Sinn Féin TD was elected on the second count in the early hours of Sunday morning, passing the quota with just over 300 votes to spare.
With two candidates over the line and one still in the running, the race came to an end for Cllr Jordan after the 13th count. Securing a total of 5,513 votes, he was 7,258 off reaching the quota.
Despite this, Deputy Doherty said his fellow party member had a very strong performance.
“Noel has done everything that was asked of him, there is no doubt about that,” Deputy Doherty told the Donegal News. “It was always going to be a big challenge for Sinn Féin.
“The general election came after a bruising local and European election, not so much for this county but across the State, where we got only 11 and 12 per cent of the vote in those elections.”
Despite Cllr Jordan missing out on a seat, Deputy Doherty still thinks it was the right strategy to run three candidates.
“We were careful not to risk coming back with just one seat, which happened us in 2016,” he said.
“He had a very strong performance and overall he has been part of what is phenomenal here in Donegal to have over 42 per cent of the people in the county give this team their first preference.”
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