Mr Joe O'toole has topped the poll in the Seanad election on the National University of Ireland (NUI) panel in the first count with 7,492 votes. He is expected to be re-elected when counting resumes this morning. When the first count was completed late last night, Mr Feargal Quinn was second with 6,964 votes, while Prof William Binchy was a close third with 6,736 votes. Former senator Brendan Ryan was in fourth place with 5,885 votes. The quota is 8,520.
Early indications are that Prof Binchy may take the third seat, vacated by Prof Joe Lee, who is not seeking re-election. Prof Binchy needs a further 1,800 votes to reach the quota while Mr Ryan needs just over 2,600 votes.
In the last Seanad election, Mr Ryan, then a senator, ran neck-in-neck with Prof Binchy through the count but both lost out to Prof Lee.
Prof Binchy, professor of law in Trinity college and legal adviser to the Pro-Life Campaign, said he was "very happy to have come up by nearly 2,500 votes on the last time. Tomorrow will be a nail biter," he said at the count in the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin.
He said he was keeping an "open mind" on the election but was wary of making predictions, particularly as he had very poor transfers in the last election.
Initial tallies suggested he would battle for the third seat with Mr Ryan and Ms Linda O'Shea-Farren, the programme manager to the former Minister for Justice, Mrs Nora Owen. She is now out of the running with just 1,601 votes.
Mr Tommy Francis, a teacher in Co Donegal and former president of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland, was in fifth place after the first count.
An early check of the votes showed that the only clear transfers were from Mr Francis. His second preferences went almost exclusively to Mr O'Toole.
Mr O'Toole, general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) and a member of the Seanad since 1987, expressed relief at his poll-topping performance. He said he had been campaigning since May but was concerned that much of his electorate - teachers - would be on holidays when the election took place.
When the count resumes in the morning, the 444 votes of Mr Brendan Price, a former zoo-keeper, will be redistributed.
Almost 500 ballot papers were discarded before counting began. Up to 100 of those were excluded because voters forgot to include their ballot paper with a "declaration of identity" form.
Dr John Nolan, registrar of the NUI, said a number of the ballots had "either no voter signature, no witness signature, no witness address, or no ballot paper."
National University of Ireland (3 seats)
Electorate: 93,309 Votes cast: 34,102 Valid poll: 34,078 Spoiled votes: 24
First count O'Toole, Joe (senator) 7,492 Quinn, Feargal (supermarket chain owner and senator) 6,964 Binchy William (law professor) 6,736 Ryan, Brendan (lecturer) 5,885 Francis, Tommy (teacher) 3,111 O'Shea-Farren, Linda (banker) 1,601 Ryan, Eamon (cycling holiday company director) 972 O Cleirigh, Ann Mary (psychologist) 873 Price, Brendan (former zoo-keeper) 444
