A new opinion poll has shown Sinn Féin’s support in the Republic has plummeted with less than six days to go before Ireland goes to vote.
Sinn Féin’s support in the Republic has plummeted with less than six days to go before the country goes to vote.
The Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks opinion poll has recorded a massive seven point drop to 22pc in voter support for Sinn Féin in the last week of the local and European election campaign.
This is a 15 point drop in Sinn Féin’s record high of support in October 2022 when the party commanded 37pc of voter support.
Mary Lou McDonald’s party is now neck and neck with Taoiseach Simon Harris’s Fine Gael who are up three points to 22pc in the last month.
Ms McDonald’s personal popularity has dropped to 36pc, while Mr Harris (48pc) is now the country’s joint most popular party leader alongside Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin (48pc).
However, the poll showed the most popular option for voters in the Republic of Ireland ahead of next week’s elections is Independent/others who have increased support by four points to 23pc.
This means almost one in four voters are planning to vote for Independent candidates or those representing small political parties.
In a forced choice, the public voted overwhelming in favour of the next government being a combination of Fine Gael-Fianna Fail-Independents (59pc) rather than a Sinn Féin led government excluding Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil (41pc).
The state of the other parties are Fianna Fáil up one to 17pc and Social Democrats down one to 5pc. The Green Party (4pc), Aontú (3pc), Labour Party (3pc) and Solidarity-People Before Profit (2pc) are all unchanged.
Next Friday, June 7, voters in the Republic of Ireland will select 949 councillors to serve across 31 local authorities.
Meanwhile, 14 seats in the European Parliament are up for grabs across the three EU constituencies of Dublin, Ireland South and Midlands North West.
In Limerick, voters will also decide on who should be the country’s first directly elected mayor.
Ahead of polling stations opening on Friday, Fianna Fáil are the largest party in local government while Fine Gael are second. Despite their dramatic fall in support, Sinn Féin are expected to make gains in council seats as they took less than 10pc of the vote in 2019.