A Sinn Féin councillor said the poorer-than-expected local election campaign was due to a failure by the party to provide serious opposition to the Government in the last 12 months.

Aidan Mullins, who was elected to Laois County Council, said three issues were evident on the doorsteps - immigration, the party's stance on the referendums and the Hate Speech Bill.

Colette Nolan failed to win a seat in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. Asked for her view on the overall performance of the party, she said the influx of independents had an impact, but Sinn Fein as a whole has gained council seats.

"What we do is we dust ourselves off after we learn from what went wrong and we change to give the people exactly what they want."

Marion Falvey O'Sullivan, who failed to get elected in Listowel, Co Kerry, pointed to the fact many people didn't vote at all and stayed at home.

She said housing and cost of living were some of the issues raised on the doorsteps.

People "weren't happy with the Government that's in place at the moment but, yet, there were a lot of them that got back in again."

Thomas Healy, who won a seat in Sligo, is positive about Sinn Féin's future.

He said: "You can't put local and general elections together, because if you look at 2019 - when some candidates didn't make it - when the general election was called a lot of them candidates went on then to be TDs."

Tommy Guilfoyle is a new councillor in Ennis, Co Clare. He said Sinn Féin has lost some of the "protest vote" to independents, some of the right wing.

He said the party's vote has increased. "We have more councillors than we had the last local election, so the people that believe in our policies and our ideals we've increased that."