MARY Lou McDonald has signalled her determination to continue as Sinn Féin leader after the party suffered a double setback at the polls.
Little over a year after Mrs McDonald succeeded Gerry Adams, Sinn Féin lost almost half its seats on the Republic's councils and saw its share of the vote in the European election fall by nearly eight per cent.
With counting for the European election was continuing last night, it looked like the party would be lucky to retain one of its three MEPs.
Sinn Féin's Lynn Boylan lost her Dublin seat, while the party's presidential candidate Liadh Ní Riada was facing potential elimination last night in the South constituency.
The party's best hope of an MEP was in Midlands North West where Matt Carthy was on course to retain his seat.
Sinn Féin's 9.5 per cent share of first preference votes in the council elections was 5.8 per cent down on 2014, resulting in the loss of almost half its seats.
Ahead of last Friday's election it had been the single biggest party in Dublin with 32 seats. However, the loss of 14 councillors saw the party superseded in the capital by both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, which have 36 and 34 seats respectively.
Overall, Fianna Fáil secured the highest number of first preference votes with a 26.9 per cent share, an increase of 1.6 per cent on five years previous. Michéal Martin's party ended up with 279 seats, gaining 12 on 2014.
Fine Gael also saw its share of the vote grow by 1.3 per cent to 25.3 per cent, increasing its council seats by 20 to 255.
Sinn Féin remains the third biggest party in local government south of the border but its representation has dropped from 159 seats to 81.
Labour secured a 5.7 per cent share of the vote, increasing its seat tally by six to 57, while the Green Party enjoyed the greatest gains, increasing its council representation from 12 to 49 with a 5.5 per cent of the share.
Independent candidates gained 19.6 per cent of first preference votes from an overall turnout of 50.2 per cent.
Responding to media speculation that Mrs McDonald could potentially face a challenge to her leadership in the wake of poor electoral performances, the Dublin TD insisted her position was not in peril.
"I believe when you take on to lead an organisation such as ours - we're a big organisation, we're a national organisation - you have to steel yourself for the days that things don't go your way and that really is a more direct test of a leader," she said.
"It's easy to lead when you're on a surge, when things are going your way."
She conceded the results were testing.
"The test comes when you have a situation that's difficult, how do you handle that and how do you bring your party with you – and I'm determined to do that," she said.
"I'm determined that we will learn the lessons and I'm determined that we will be back again. Any seat that we have lost, let me say, we will be back to win those seats back."
The Sinn Féin leader was speaking at the Midlands North West constituency count centre in Castlebar, Co Mayo, where the party's incumbent MEP Matt Carthy was on course to be returned.
Mr Carthy has conceded that his vote is down on the 2014 election, and told the Press Association that the party would "have to learn lessons fast", in order to remedy the damage caused by the elections over the weekend.
Ms McDonald agreed, adding: "Obviously we have had a tough election in terms of the council seats that we have lost, and we've lost very good people, very fine public representatives and the party will have to reflect and gather ourselves and get back to work."
