Ireland's general election must take place by March next year, though some analysts think it may happen sooner.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he is not planning to call a general election in 2024, suggesting he is supportive of a polling day in early 2025.
This year is already set to be an important electoral test for the Government – two referendums are due to take place on March 8th, while local and European elections are scheduled in June.
Below you will find the latest estimated public support for the main political parties based on an average of recent polls.
After 13 years of Fine Gael in power, Sinn Féin has been consistently ahead in the polls since the start of 2021.
However, Sinn Féin’s support has fallen in the most recent surveys, and from a high of 36 per cent in 2022.
Support for the Government parties has remained largely unchanged over the last year, while support for Independent candidates has jumped significantly since the autumn.
Between the end of October 2023 and early January 2024, the estimated support for Independent candidates and other parties increased by around 4 percentage points.
Despite the recent shift, Sinn Féin is still most likely to be the largest party in the next Dáil.
The breakingnews.ie poll tracker combines voting intention surveys published by major Irish pollsters into one estimate of support for each party. The data is sourced from the Irish Polling Indicator, which is maintained by academics Tom Louwerse and Stefan Muller.
All polls are based on a sample of people interviewed, typically more than 1,000, which is then weighted to be representative of the country.
Listed below are the polls that are currently used to calculate the polling averages.
By Tomas Doherty
The latest news is available on our website Beat102103.com.
