Shanahan and McGuinness to fight for the last seat says Mayor Murphy 

"It's going to be a fight between Matt Shanahan and Conor McGuinness for the last seat," says Mayor of Waterford and Fianna Fáil Councillor Jason Murphy. The battle between Independent candidate Matt Shanahan and Sinn Féin's Conor McGuinness is widely expected to be resolved on transfers. 

"At the moment it's looking like Conor McGuinness is the slight favourite, Matt Shanahan is about a percentage point behind. So that is going to be interesting!"

"Looking at Mary [Butler] there, she's doing really well at 18.1%. She should be fine, and should get a seat from that," Mayor Murphy said. "Obviously David Cullinane will take a seat, he's on 23.7%. Polling very well is John Cummins, at 19% and Mary too. The final seat is the one everyone is watching."

"I've never seen an election decided on the first count so the transfers will be key," he said, "Mary Roche, Sadhbh O'Neill, Marc Ó Cathasaigh, where are their votes going to go?"

The Mayor said that while tallying at the count centre he had noticed that Fine Gael transfers "were nearly a pure transfer" to Fianna Fáil, with Independent candidate Matt Shanahan receiving transfers from both parties.

"There's a long way to go yet, but it's exciting times," said Mayor Murphy.