West Belfast: Gerry Adams was re-elected with a massive majority in the West Belfast constituency, winning more than 70 per cent of the vote, and increasing his share by 4.4 per cent.
He obtained 24,348 votes. His SDLP rival, Alex Atwood, received 5,033, a fall of 2,721 since the last Westminster election.
The Ulster Unionist candidate, Chris McGimpsey, registered his party's lowest vote ever, winning only 779 votes. He was not present at the announcement of the result. The DUP candidate, Diane Dodds, obtained 3,652 votes.
In a low-key acceptance speech Mr Adams thanked his elections workers and congratulated them on the increase in the share of the vote, especially in the light of the "campaign of vilification" against the party.
He said he had "the most brilliant team of elections workers I have seen anywhere." People who voted for Sinn Féin voted for three things, he said: a way forward through dialogue, getting the Good Friday agreement back on track, and a united Ireland. He vowed to work, not only for those who voted for the party, but for those who voted against it and those who did not vote.
He said later he had spoken to Downing Street yesterday morning, and to the Taoiseach, and hoped for political progress in the wake of the election.
Mr Atwood said that the real issue now was to rebuild hopes in the Good Friday agreement, hopes that had been so cruelly dashed in the past few years.
Ms Dodds, the DUP candidate, who described herself as "the representative of traditional unionism in West Belfast", said the result meant the DUP had increased its share of the vote in the constituency by 15 per cent since the Assembly elections.
An independent candidate who stood specifically to challenge para-military violence, Liam Kennedy, received only 147 votes. Following the result, he delivered a passionate speech in which he congratulated Mr Adams, "a representative of the IRA Army Council," on his election.
He appealed to Mr Adams to go directly to the Garda and the PSNI to help bring justice to the Omagh families.
"The republican movement holds within itself vital information about the identities, networks and movements of the killers," he said.
While denouncing republican violence, he said also that loyalist paramilitaries had visited great pain on countless families, including those of Pat Finucane.
He said he had concerns about the election itself.
"One movement in this election - Sinn Féin and the IRA - is awash with money. No democratic party, no matter how large, can compete with a politico-criminal conspiracy that has virtually unlimited access to resources, through legal and illegal means," he said.