Hutch’s Dail bid ends with him running away from pandemonium at count centre

His controversial run for election to the Irish parliament finished with Mr Hutch running away through the RDS car park being followed by the media.

The independent candidate had seemed well poised through much of the lengthy count process to win the final seat in the Dublin Central constituency, but was ultimately overhauled by Labour Party candidate Marie Sherlock.

Dubliner Mr Hutch, 61, had announced his surprise candidature after arriving back in Ireland last month following his arrest in Spain last month as part of an international investigation into money laundering.

He has reportedly been released on bail of 100,000 euro.

Fine Gael leader Simon Harris and other candidates in the constituency had criticised his election bid.

It had been anticipated that Mr Hutch would not attend the count centre when it had become clear he would not be elected, but he arrived unexpectedly just after three o’clock on Sunday.

His presence caused chaotic scenes as a huge media scrum assembled and followed him around the centre, while security staff struggled to keep control.

He finally stopped at railings placed around a vote counting station, which was not for the constituency in which he was running.

Dozens of reporters, photographers and camera operators jostled to get close and shouted questions.

He said: “There’s never a guard (member of the Garda) around when you need one.”

Asked why he thought so many people had voted for him, he replied “Because they are looking for change and if I got elected I would give them the change that they want. I would do what they want.”

Asked why he had attended the count centre, he replied: “What do you think? This is a joke, this is a circus.”

Asked if he would run again, he said: “I’ve been running all my life, I love running.”

There were angry scenes as security staff attempted to move the media back.

Mr Hutch stayed in the count centre for just over half an hour before leaving, surrounded by security.

As the media followed him outside the building, he was repeatedly asked if he would run for election again.

He then started jogging through the car park, with journalists in pursuit, before turning onto the main road and continuing to run away.

Mr Hutch had run a colourful campaign, telling reporters after he arrived at Dublin Airport some weeks ago that he would contest the General Election and then arriving at the office of the Dublin City returning officer on a moped to lodge his papers.

He was later pictured driving through the constituency in his white election van. His election posters featured the slogan, “We need change and I’m your man.”

His efforts at first seemed to have paid off. At the end of the first count in the four-seat constituency on Saturday, in which Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald topped the poll, Mr Hutch was in fourth place with 3,098 first preference votes.

However, the complex system of proportional representation in the Irish election, means that the gap between candidates can fluctuate through a series of counts as some are elected and others eliminated.

On Sunday morning, Mr Hutch still had a lead of more than 2,000 votes over Ms Sherlock, prompting former taoiseach Bertie Ahern to tell Newstalk FM that it seemed likely that the controversial candidate would be elected.

However, as the count stretched into Sunday afternoon, the further distribution of votes saw Ms Sherlock dramatically narrow the gap to just over 100 votes.

Of the 930 surplus votes that were available after the Social Democrat Gary Gannon was elected, 716 went to Ms Sherlock and just 18 to Mr Hutch. The distribution following the elimination of Fianna Fail’s Mary Fitzpatrick similarly favoured Ms Sherlock.

This left Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik able to predict shortly after lunchtime that Ms Sherlock would “hold off” the challenge of the independent candidate while the count was still progressing.

Shortly after Mr Hutch left the RDS, it was confirmed that Ms Sherlock had secured the final seat in the Dublin Central area.

When asked about her interaction with Mr Hutch, Ms Sherlock said: “He wished me well.

“Obviously there’s 3,000 votes that he got, that is to be absolutely respected and it is a reflection of the frustration in the communities.

“But it is a reflection of the vote that I also got.”

Last spring, Mr Hutch was found not guilty by the non-jury Special Criminal Court of the murder of David Byrne, in one of the first deadly attacks of the Hutch-Kinahan gangland feud.

Mr Byrne, 33, died after being shot six times at a crowded boxing weigh-in event at the Regency Hotel in February 2016.

A judge of the Special Criminal Court described Mr Hutch as the patriarchal figurehead of the Hutch criminal organisation and said he had engaged in “serious criminal conduct”.