EMER COSTELLO HAS all but conceded that she will not retain her European Parliament seat in Dublin.

The Labour MEP said that indications from the exit polls and the tallies show that she will not achieve enough support to take one of the three seats in the capital.

“Sometimes that happens, the wind isn’t with you and it wasn’t with us on this occasion,” she said this evening after arriving at the RDS where the results of the first count are due later. 

She said she was “very disappointed” that issues that were debated during the course of the campaign were “very local issues” and did not focus on Europe.
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On her own political future, the former Lord Mayor of Dublin said: “I think that I’ll leave a bit of time to take stock and to see what the future will hold. ”

She also expressed confidence in her party leader Eamon Gilmore and said that Labour has done “a remarkably good job in government”.

“I said going into this election that I have full confidence in Eamon Gilmore’s leadership and I still stand by what I said,” she said. “I think that it would have been difficult for any leader of the Labour Party.”

She added that after the elections the party needs to “refocus” and added: “We need to certainly listen to what the electorate have said to us. I think we need to have a re-evaluation of our programme for government”. 

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Election 2014 Liveblog: Local and European results as they happen