Tight three-way race in Irish general election, RTÉ exit poll suggests

An exit poll in the Republic of Ireland suggests that Sinn Féin has 21.1% of first preference votes with Fine Gael having 21%, making the result of the general election too close to call.

The poll indicates Fianna Fáil has 19.5% of first preference votes.

It also suggests that 20% of the second preference votes goes to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, with Sinn Féin at 17%.

The exit poll was published at 22:00 local time and was carried out by Ipsos B&A for RTÉ, The Irish Times, TG4 and Trinity College Dublin. It has a margin of error of 1.4%.

In the 2020 Irish general election, Sinn Féin secured 24.53% first preference votes, while Fianna Fáil obtained 22.18% and Fine Gael got 20.86%.

Friday’s poll indicates Green Party first preference support stands at 4%; Labour at 5%; the Social Democrats at 5.8%; People Before Profit-Solidarity at 3.1% and Independents at 12.7%, Independent Ireland 2.2% with others on 1.9%.

The poll is based on 5,018 completed interviews that were carried out immediately after people voted at polling stations in 43 constituencies across the Republic of Ireland.

The results from this poll set the scene for the official counting of votes which starts at 09:00 local time on Saturday and is expected to continue across the weekend.

It is possible that some of the 43 constituencies may not have a final result until the beginning of next week.

Successful candidates are known as Teachtaí Dála (TDs) and there are 174 seats to fill, but the Ceann Comhairle (speaker) is returned automatically.

More than 680 candidates competed for the remaining 173 seats.

The number of seats required for an overall majority is 88 but no single party is fielding enough candidates to win a majority on its own.

The first meeting of the new Dáil (lower house of parliament) is on 18 December but it is unlikely coalition negotiations will have finished by then.

A government will be officially formed when the Dáil passes a vote to install a new taoiseach (Irish prime minister).

Few expect the new government to be in place before 2025.

It took four months after the last general election, in 2020, before Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Green Party, reached a deal to form the previous Irish government.

Sinn Féin became the leading opposition party, and both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have both already ruled them out as a potential coalition partner in the event of a similar outcome this election.

The three largest parties are joined in the Dáil by a number of smaller parties and a significant number of independent candidates.

Politics in the Republic was traditionally dominated by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

Both parties emerged following a split in nationalist opinion over the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Fianna Fáil was once seen as more centrist, Fine Gael as more conservative, but differences have blurred and both are now seen as centre-right parties.

This year’s election is the first major electoral test for the Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach Simon Harris.

He was new to the role in April, when he became the youngest person to lead the Republic of Ireland at 37 after his predecessor Leo Varadkar stepped down.

Sinn Féin is an Irish republican and democratic socialist party and the main opposition party.

Mary Lou McDonald took over leadership of the party in 2018, and since then the Dublin politician has sought to distance her party from criticism about its historic links to IRA violence.