Michael D Higgins was last night on course to become the ninth Irish President.
The Labour Party candidate received 701,101 first-preference votes -- almost 40% of
the total.
Martin McGuinness was set to come third, while independent Dana Rosemary Scallon was
eliminated on the first count.
Responding to media questions, Mr McGuinness refused to rule out meeting the Queen
or other members of the Royal family in his role as Deputy First Minister of
Northern Ireland.
But first he intends returning to his duties at Stormont after the Halloween break.
"Peter will be looking for me," he said.
"I made it clear that if I was elected President of Ireland I would welcome Queen
Elizabeth to this country. What you are asking me now about the north is
hypothetical at this stage. At this stage, all I am considering is the result of
this election. Talk to me about it next week."
Such a move would require a change of policy for Sinn Féin, which opposed the
Queen's recent visit to the Republic.
A Sinn Féin source said that Mr McGuinness was willing to meet the Queen as an
individual but could not do so under current Sinn Féin rules. He added that one
option had been for Mr McGuinness if he was elected President.
Mr McGuinness was speaking during counting at the Irish Presidential election when
it was clear that Michael D Higgins, a quietly spoken Galway academic, was elected
the Republic's head of state.
Mr McGuinness was warm in his congratulations for the victorious Labour candidate,
aged 70.
"I am over the moon for him. I think he will make an absolutely great President and
he will be my President also," he said.
Mr Higgins has no strong record of involvement but won some goodwill from
republicans for repealing Article 31 of the republic's broadcasting act, which
banned Sinn Féin members from the airwaves, when he was minister of Arts, Culture
and the Gaeltacht in 1993.
The big winners of the election are the Irish Labour Party who broke two significant
records last night. The first record was shattered when Mr Higgins became, the first
Labour Party member to win the Presidency in the history of the state, although Mary
Robinson was a former member. The second was when Patrick Nulty of Labour won a
Dublin West Dáil by-election and became the first member of a governing party to win
a by-election in 29 years.
Overall, Labour, traditionally the third party in the state, won 39.6% of the first
preference vote making them the most formidable electoral force in the country.
The biggest losers were Fine Gael, Labour's senior partners in government. Their
candidate, Gay Mitchell, secured the parties lowest ever vote at just 6.4%. A
candidate who scores 12.5% of the vote can claim up to €200,000 in electoral
expenses from the state. Mr Mitchell along with independents David Norris (6.2%),
Mary Davis (2.7%) and Dana Rosemary Scallon (2.9%) will be unable to do so.
Sinn Féin just made it with 13.7% of the first preference poll, the highest it has
ever scored but well below the 17% or 18% they had been predicting.
Martin McGuinness, who turned up at the count with his wife, Bernie, pronounced
himself delighted with the result.
"I am in great form about it all, I think it is fantastic," he said,
"The days of second-class citizenship are over. I epitomise first-class citizenship
for nationalists and Republicans in the north. I now go back to my work in the
power-sharing institutions of the north as the joint first minister and as the
longest serving minister on the north-south ministerial council. I am part of an
all-island party that is going from strength to strength," he added.
Defeated presidential candidate Sean Gallagher last night declined to blame Mr
McGuinness for costing him the presidential election.
Mr McGuinness dramatically confronted Mr Gallagher about his involvement in a Fianna
Fail fundraising dinner during Monday night's televised Frontline debate.
It led to a torrid final few days of the campaign for Mr Gallagher, who had been
leading in the opinion polls.
When asked if he blamed Mr McGuinness, who challenged him about his Fianna Fáil past
during the TV debate, for costing him the election, Mr Gallagher said: "Tonight is
not a night for blame, tonight is a night for celebration."
