MARY HANAFIN HAS said she is “absolutely delighted” to have taken a seat on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council where she will join her party colleague Kate Feeney.

The former minister has been elected to the council for the Blackrock ward along with Feeney, the chair of Ógra Fianna Fáil, despite the fact the party told Hanafin to withdraw her nomination earlier this month.

Micheál Martin asked Hanafin to withdraw her nomination papers after the party reneged on a proposal to run a second candidate along with Feeney in Blackrock, but the former TD went ahead and ran for the council anyway.

“I am absolutely delighted, I am thrilled with my personal vote. I’m delighted that we’re getting two seats out of six seats in the area,” she said today.

She said that once she got over the “initial difficulties” the campaign was “a pleasure” and involved campaigners new and old.

Hanafin continued: “We didn’t have big billboards or big placards, we just had one leaflet, but it was very much about meeting people talking to them and listening to them and that’s what paid off in the end.”
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With Fianna Fáil’s national executive committee instigating an investigation into Hanafin, the newly-elected councillor said the committee “will want to do what they want to do” but insisted that before the election she had been shown evidence that if she ran the party could win two seats.

“You can’t win two seats if you only have one candidate so by having the two we did exactly that,” she added.

Read: Micheál Martin is delighted for Kate Feeney…and Mary Hanafin did well too

LIVEBLOG: Local election results 2014