A “simple” recount will take place for the final seat on the Trinity Seanad panel after 31 votes separated Green Party Councillor Hazel Chu and entrepreneur Aubrey McCarthy.
Independent Senators Lynn Ruane and Tom Clonan were re-elected to the Trinity College constituency on Thursday night.
Mr McCarthy had 3,741 votes while Ms Chu ended with 3,710 votes after former rugby union player Hugo MacNeill was eliminated.
Former children’s minister Katherine Zappone, who was among the most well-known of the candidates, was eliminated on the ninth count.
Counting in the Seanad elections continues at Leinster House in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA)
Independents Michael McDowell, Ronan Mullen and Alice Mary Higgins were all been re-elected to the Seanad on Wednesday night and Thursday.
Seanad Eireann is the upper house of the Irish parliament.
Meanwhile, the counting process for the five vocational panels is continuing at Leinster House.
A total of 111 candidates are competing for the 43 seats.
On the Cultural and Education panel, Sinn Fein’s Pauline Tully was elected on the second count. She lost her Cavan-Monaghan Dail seat.
She was followed by Fine Gael’s Cathal Byrne on 141 votes. He took the second of the five-seat panel.
As soon as each panel is counted, the counting staff will move to the next panel.
Counting will begin at 9.30am each day and continue until around midnight.
All results will be posted on the Oireachtas website and social media sites.
The counting order of panels will be Cultural and Education; Agricultural; Labour; Industrial and Commercial; and Administrative.
The vast majority of the public do not have a vote in the Seanad.
The Dail’s TDs, outgoing senators and local authority councillors make up the electorate for the five vocational panels.
Graduates of NUI institutions and Trinity College Dublin vote for the six seats across the two panels.
The final 11 Seanad seats are appointed by Taoiseach Micheal Martin.
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Among those running for a seat are Fine Gael’s Alan Farrell, Fianna Fail’s Joe Flaherty, Green Party’s Malcolm Noonan, as well as Sinn Fein’s Conor Murphy.
Mr Murphy, who is the party’s chief negotiator and Stormont Economy Minister, announced the surprise move last month.
The Newry and Armagh representative, who is running in the Industrial and Commercial panel, said that “constitutional change is coming” and that his experience “will drive efforts for referenda and Irish reunification”.
Other notable candidates include Frances Black, Restaurants Association of Ireland chief executive Adrian Cummins, and former TD Cathal Berry.
Elected senators will debate legislation put forward by the Government.
They can amend Bills and propose their own Bills but cannot prevent one from becoming law.