Breaking News
Counting underway in Presidential election – with Michael D Higgins on course for landslide victory
Galway Bay fm newsroom – The first votes are being counted in the Presidential election and blasphemy referendum.
The exit polls suggest Michael D Higgins will comfortably win the election, and that blasphemy will be repealed from the Constitution.
It looks like a landslide victory for President Higgins – with two exit polls putting the current President on course to be re-elected with between 56% and 58% of the vote.
Businessman Peter Casey looks as though he will place second – securing 21% support in a surprise turnaround in the last week of polling.
His comments that Travellers should not be given ethnic status angered many, but clearly appealed to a significant amount of the electorate.
Sinn Féin will have to pore over why their campaign failed.
Sinn Fein’s candidate Liadh Ni Riada polled worse than Martin McGuinness in 2011 with the exit poll showing she only secured between 7 and 8 per cent of the vote.
The party has been criticised for being slow to announce their candidate but the party’s health spokesperson Louise O’Reilly is blaming the poor turnout.
Sean Gallagher will finish on between 5.5% and 7% according to the exit polls – far short of the half a million votes he got in 2011.
Pieta House founder Senator Joan Freeman will finish with around 6%, while businessman Gavin Duffy conceded overnight and is likely to get just 2% support.
Mr Duffy says he has no regrets about his decision to run for office.
He has tweeted his congratulations to Michael D Higgins, and wished him all the best for his second term.
Breaking News
Listen: Killtullagh’s Saoirse Ruane learns to ride her bike again

Galway Bay fm news – Kiltullagh native Saoirse Ruane – star of last year’s Toy Show – has gone viral online, again!
The 9 year old has learned to cycle her bicycle again using a specially modified bike – and has shared the achievement on social media.
Saoirse and her mum Rosanna spoke to FYI Galway:
Breaking News
37 new cases of Covid-19 in Galway – 574 nationwide with 56 additional deaths

Galway Bay fm news – The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 56 additional deaths related to COVID-19.
31 of these deaths occurred in February, 13 occurred in January, 3 in December or earlier, while a further 9 are under investigation.
The median age of those who died was 82 years and the age range was 16 – 97 years.
There has been a total of 4,237 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.
As of midnight, Tuesday 23rd February, the HPSC has been notified of 574 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 216,870* confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.
Of the cases notified today:
- 285 are men / 287 are women
- 67% are under 45 years of age
- The median age is 34 years old
- 175 in Dublin, 57 in Limerick, 43 in Kildare, 37 in Galway, 35 in Meath and the remaining 227 cases are spread across 18 other counties. **
As of 8am today, 652 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 137 are in ICU. 35 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
As of February 21, 353,971 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland:
- 222,073 people have received their first dose
- 131,898 people have received their second dose
Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health said: “We continue to see good progress, but this needs to be sustained. It is vital that we get our children back to school over the coming weeks. A key part of making this a success will be our continued collective buy-in to the public health measures that are tried and tested. Stay at home, work from home where possible.”
“Given the increased transmissibility of the virus now, we must continue to limit our social contacts and do all we can to starve this disease of opportunities to spread.”
The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of COVID-19 in the community including daily data on Ireland’s COVID-19 Vaccination Programme.
ENDS//
*Validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 4 confirmed cases. The figure of 216,870 cases reflects this.
**County data should be considered provisional as the national Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting System (CIDR) is a dynamic system and case details are continually being validated and updated.
County | Today’s cases (to midnight 23Feb2021)** | 5 day moving average (to midnight 23Feb2021)** | 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population (10Feb2021 to 23Feb2021)** | New Cases during last 14 days (10Feb2021 to 23Feb2021)** |
Ireland | 574 | 700 | 231.4 | 11,017 |
Offaly | 7 | 22 | 415.6 | 324 |
Galway | 37 | 43 | 327.4 | 845 |
Dublin | 175 | 255 | 314 | 4,231 |
Laois | 18 | 16 | 292.8 | 248 |
Monaghan | 0 | 9 | 286.7 | 176 |
Longford | 17 | 8 | 286.3 | 117 |
Kildare | 43 | 42 | 273.7 | 609 |
Limerick | 57 | 43 | 272.4 | 531 |
Louth | <5 | 26 | 271.6 | 350 |
Mayo | 21 | 24 | 265.1 | 346 |
Waterford | 21 | 21 | 262.5 | 305 |
Westmeath | 14 | 16 | 261.3 | 232 |
Cavan | 10 | 11 | 244.2 | 186 |
Meath | 35 | 27 | 238.9 | 466 |
Carlow | 8 | 8 | 212.5 | 121 |
Tipperary | 17 | 24 | 188 | 300 |
Leitrim | 0 | 2 | 174.8 | 56 |
Donegal | 21 | 20 | 160.8 | 256 |
Clare | 15 | 15 | 159.1 | 189 |
Wexford | 5 | 8 | 142.3 | 213 |
Roscommon | 0 | 5 | 119.3 | 77 |
Wicklow | 10 | 13 | 106 | 151 |
Sligo | <5 | 4 | 103.8 | 68 |
Kilkenny | 5 | 8 | 98.8 | 98 |
Cork | 21 | 23 | 83.6 | 454 |
Kerry | 11 | 6 | 46 | 68 |
~The 5-day moving average of the number of new cases provides an appropriate indicator of current daily case numbers within a county. It takes account of any validation of cases for previous days and smooths out daily/weekend fluctuations in case numbers.
- 7 day incidence is 108.4
- 5-day moving average is 700
Breaking News
Revaluation of rateable properties in Galway’s local authority areas to be deferred

Galway Bay fm newsroom – The revaluation of rateable properties in Galway’s local authority areas is to be deferred.
Due to COVID-19, the Minister for Local Government has today agreed with the Commissioner of Valuation to defer the process for commercial and industrial properties until 2022.
Deferrals have also been confirmed for local authorities in Clare, Donegal, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Kerry and Mayo.
New valuations arising from the revaluation of these local authorities will now be finalised in September 2022 and become effective for rates purposes from 2023 onwards.