Counting continues on day two of the Irish general election

More than half of the seats in the Irish parliament are filled, with the Fianna Fáil party leading a tough three-way battle in the country’s general election.

With initial counts from all 43 constituencies, the first preference percentage for the three largest parties is: Fianna Fáil 21.9%, Fine Gael 20.8%, Sinn Féin 19.0%.

At the moment, 114 of the 174 places have been taken, and counting resumed on Sunday morning.

Fianna Fáil, which had been in a coalition government with Fine Gael and the Green Party, is expected to win the majority of seats.

Counting resumed on Sunday morning in the election which had a turnout of 59.7%, the lowest in more than a century.

The leaders of Ireland’s three main political parties were all re-elected on Saturday to serve in the Dáil (the lower house of the Irish parliament).

Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin, Fine Gael’s Simon Harris and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald have overcome their first obstacles keeping their seats.

Now, they all face an even bigger challenge: trying to form the next government.

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Labor Party leader Ivana Bacik has also been re-elected in the Dublin Bay South constituency.

Social Democrat party leader Holly Cairns and Irish Independent leader Michael Collins retained their seats in the Cork South West constituency and

Aontú leader Piedar Tóibín has been re-elected in West Meath and People Before Profit-Solidarity’s Richard Boyd Barrett has been returned to the Dún Laoghaire constituency.

The Green Party’s Roderic O’Gorman was the latest party leader to be re-elected for Dublin West.

He was the only one of the 12 sitting Greens TDs to retain their seats.

O’Gorman said Green candidates received “very few transfers” from Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, the party’s former coalition partners.

“I don’t think they did us any favors, but I didn’t expect them to do us any favors,” he said.

Catherine Martin, former deputy leader of the Green Party and Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, was eliminated in the Dublin Rathdown race on Sunday evening.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have served together in the outgoing government, and after the first day of counting, they look well placed to return to government.

If they agree to do so, they may need the support of one of the smaller parties or some of the many independent TDs expected to be elected as the counting of votes continues on Sunday.

Sinn Féin says it also wants to be in the next government and the party is willing to talk to other parties and pro-independence parties.

But according to current predictions, the scale of the challenge facing Sinn Féin is enormous.

Political pundits are currently predicting that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael could take a combined total of more than 80 seats, just short of the golden figure of 88 TDs needed to achieve a majority in the Dáil.

The same experts believe that Sinn Féin could get around 40 seats.

But even if it does, it will still be well short of what is required for a Dáil majority.

In this case, Sinn Féin should look to smaller parties and independents.

However, the smaller games are expected to be in the single digits when all their TDs are finally confirmed.

If Sinn Féin turns to independents, it will find a very disparate TD cohort.

Finding common cause in such a situation will be another big challenge for the party.

To make matters worse, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have insisted they are not interested in sharing power with Sinn Féin because of fundamental policy differences on a range of issues.

There is widespread belief that negotiations to form a new government may go beyond Christmas and into the new year.

After being one of the most talked about stories of this election, independent candidate Gerry Hutch has officially lost in the Dublin Central constituency.

At one point he had a 2,000-vote lead over Labour’s Marie Sherlock, but she overtook him after a series of transfers from the eliminated Green Party and Fianna Fáil candidates.

Hutch’s win would have been very remarkable, last year it was acquitted of a high-profile murder when a man was shot dead at a boxing weigh-in. A judge has described him as having been involved in serious criminal conduct in the past.

Analysis – BBC News NI political editor Enda McClafferty

Gerry Hutch may feel robbed after being tipped big to secure a seat at Dublin Central.

But he didn’t seem pained by his defeat when he arrived at the RDS counting centre.

Seated by reporters, the gang figure walked across the hall to congratulate Labour’s Marie Sherlock, who put him in the last seat.

He is known as a man of few words, but when asked by BBC NI if he planned to stand for re-election, he said he would.

“I’ve been running all my life, so yes I would go back,” he said

He also said he was not surprised by the more than 3,000 first preference votes he received.

“I expected more to be honest,” he said

He was challenged about his criminal past but refused to answer any questions.

After shaking Sherlock’s hand, he left the center surrounded by reporters and ended up running out of the building to escape the media attention.

So where did the man about to be the story of the Irish general election go wrong?

The key moment came when Social Democrat candidate Gary Gannon was elected well ahead of schedule.

Transfers from eliminated candidate People Before Profit propelled him into the quota.

This set in motion a series of transfers of eliminated Green and Fianna Fáil candidates that allowed Labour’s Marie Sherlock to close the gap on Hutch.

Paschal Donohoe’s surplus was finally enough to push her past Hutch who secured the last seat.

But as an accounting expert suggested, it could easily have turned in Hutch’s favor, and while there was a narrow path to victory for Sherlock, no one expected him to find it.