Fine Gael’s Conor Bergin is one of six sitting Councillors who were all re-elected to Laois County Council in the Borris in Ossory/Mountmellick Municipal District.
After pipping Brendan Phelan to the final seat in 2019 no sooner than the 10th count, he became the youngest Councillor in the county at the age of 25.
2024 was a less stressful endeavour for Conor, as he was comfortably elected with over 1600 first preference votes.
According to the tallies, Bergin polled very strongly in Camross, in his hometown of Borris-in-Ossory and also took the second highest votes out of Durrow.
Conor crossed the line with the most first preference votes in the county.
As he looks forward to a second term in Laois County Council he spoke to the LaoisToday Local Election Podcast admist the hustle and bustle of the busy count centre on Monday evening.
Still the youngest member of the Chamber, he recently helped to secure funding for a remote working hub in Durrow and there may also be a possible General Election campaign on the cards.
He was initially unnerved when the tally boxes from his hometown of Borris In Ossory weren’t opened early on Saturday.
This anxiety was consolidated by the presence of some very strong candidates in his Municipal District.
He said: “There were some very strong new first time candidates and all six outgoing councillors but since I was elected in 2019, look, I was in a very different situation here in 2019.
“I was in a fight for the last seat. It was a margin of about 30 votes between me and the next nearest candidate”.
However when they were belatedly opened he received a huge surge as he would go on to top the poll.
This hasn’t come out of nowhere and Conor has been laying the groundwork for a successful electoral campaign for years.
He said: “In my opinion, people vote over the entire five years. They don’t just vote on the campaign”.
If this is the case Conor had certainly given voters a lot to think about when they were filling out their ballot paper on the June 7.
Some of his achievements include becoming the youngest ever Chairperson of Laois County Council at the age of 27, his contribution to the renovation project of the courthouse in Borris and the work done to the wooden bridge near Durrow to name a few.
One of the reasons for Conor’s high poll was how well he performed in his own locality of Borris, the Pike and Camross.
However another factor was the places where he increased his vote from last time around like Mountrath.
He said: “I see it in all the boxes where I increased my vote. Even though I’ve done some work in Mountrath. I doubled my vote in Mountrath from about 35 last time to 65 this time”.
This wasn’t the only place where Conor’s stock rose. He even managed to pull votes from Durrow where he was second to Ollie Clooney in many of those ballot boxes.
He said: “I increased in Rathdowney, Durrow and Clough Ballacolla as well but particularly in the Camross and Borris in Ossory area I got a very large vote so I was very pleased”.
Conor has been openly very proud of how well he did and thanked everyone who voted for him on Friday.
Such a strong poll could be interpreted as encouragement for a general election campaign but Conor wants to focus on Laois County Council for the time being.
He said: “Look it’s probably not the conversation to have for today.
“But look it is something I would certainly consider when the time comes up. Today is for the locals”.
Conor will look to build on his successful term last time around as Fine Gael will certainly have many tough decisions to make when it comes to filling the ticket for the upcoming General Election.
Despite the Taoiseach Simon Harris maintaining that no such election will be held until 2025, many skeptics believe that it could come as early as October.
You can listen to the episode in full below:
SEE ALSO – Check out all our 2024 Local Election coverage here
SEE ALSO – Joey Kennedy: ‘There’s no point sulking over it. Even though I didn’t win a seat, I still won today’
