Libertas leader Declan Ganley lost 3,000 votes in the European Parliament poll after his demand for an investigation into the allocation of ballots embarrassingly backfired.

The multi-millionaire businessman delayed counting at the North West constituency for nine hours after alleging that as many as 11,000 of his votes were given to a rival.

However, a systematic spot-check of the half a million votes at the count centre in Castlebar, Co Mayo, found that his first preference was 67,638, rather than the 70,638 originally declared.