Laura thrilled with Aontú's impact in Westmeath

Aontu candidate, Laura O'Neill, who, on the sixth count (announced at 4.10pm), has 2,006 votes, is in delighted that the party had succeeded in making an impact in Westmeath.

"I am absolutely thrilled with my performance this weekend," said the Delvin woman.

"My expectations were very low, and so I just can't believe over 1,900 people went out and went to their count centres to give me a first preference vote. I am just absolutely so thankful for it, and I hope it's just something that we can build on now as well.

Laura's local TD was Peadar Tóibín, as, of course, Delvin was until this election part of the Meath West constituency, and she admired him, and the party he founded.

"I joined Aontú because I felt my values and theirs really lined up and I saw Peadar was genuinely doing the work as well, working hard and it just was something that I really wanted to be a part of."

The part's performance in this election has shown that Aontú is set to grow, Laura says: "Peadar got his seat and we surpassed the 2 per cent that we wanted to; our percentages are up all over the country. I think that we have a really good foundation built for our party."

From her experience canvassing, Laura found support from people from across the spectrum, and if there was a unifying factor, it was their sense of disgruntlement with the government.

"There were also a lot of ordinary working people who just want people to work hard for them and who know that that we're out there working on the ground."

Aontú has always been a resolutely pro-life party, and Laura says concern over abortion is still a big issue for pro-life people, and those concerns did inform some of Aontú's policies going into this election.

"For example, we know that over 80% of abortions happen because of socio economic reasons and like, and that's something that we would like to really see alleviated: we would want mothers to be in an environment where they're protected and they feel like they have the choice to keep their babies instead of going down the route of abortion," Laura added.