As the ballot boxes are opened and counting begins around the country, we examine politicians’ reactions to last night’s exit poll.
You can keep up to date with all the General Election results throughout the weekend through Newstalk’s live blog and video stream.
A joint exit poll conducted by Ipsos B&A on behalf of RTÉ, The Irish Times, TG4 and Trinity College Dublin polled approximately 5,000 voters across 250 polling stations.
Revealed last night, the poll suggests support for Sinn Féin is at 21.1% while Fine Gael is at 21%.
Fianna Fáil is just behind with 19.5% of the vote, according to the poll.
Speaking to Newstalk’s Sean Defoe, Fine Gael MEP Regina Doherty said if she had known on the morning of election day that the party would receive 21% of the vote for first preference votes, she would have taken it.
“I probably would have taken less… because the last week has been a difficult week for all of us,” she said.
“A lot of challenges obviously have been fielded our way.”
Ms Doherty said “the worry starts” when thinking about the amount of incumbents the party has.
“We went into this election with 80 candidates and only something like 18 of them were already elected,” she said.
“We had so many incumbents and then you start to worry is that really going to have an impact?
“Now we can see that 21%, as close as a hare's breaths to Sinn Fein we can be, means that people did respond to their candidates.”
Transfers
Ms Doherty hopes Fine Gael can expect a high rate of transfers from their close relationship with Fianna Fáil over the last four years.
“I would expect, probably because we've been in power with Fianna Fáil for the last while, that the transfers for Fine Gael will be very different to the lonely place that we were in 2020,” she said.
“We didn't have very many people transferring to us back then and we lost seats.
“So, I would hope tomorrow that we might see plus the 21% on the basis of that the transfers come to us from [Fianna Fáil].”
"Largest party in the state"
Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí Doolan also joined the show, saying the party are happy with their 21.1% first preference votes from the opinion poll.
Mr Doolan notes that votes have not yet been counted but Sinn Féin are currently, post exit poll, the “largest party in the state”.
“I would be confident that we will improve on our seats last time,” he said.
“We are running 71 candidates, which is the most we've ever ran.
“I think the message we were bringing to the doors right up until five to 10pm was positive, progressive change, healthcare, housing, education and billing for United Ireland.”
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Mr Doolan said people were responding “very positively” to Sinn Féin’s plans.
“Most importantly, we need to ensure that that translates into seats, because we have a big task ahead of us in fixing the health care system, fixing the housing crisis, fixing the childcare crisis, and building a foundation for a United Ireland,” he said.
“I'm very happy with the 21.1%… and we'll see what happens.”
Newstalk reporters will be at count centres around Ireland bringing you all the results as they come in.
We will also be running election specials throughout today and tomorrow, and you can follow all the action on our live blog and on our social channels.
Image shows: R, Irish Examiner Special Correspondent Mick Clifford and L, Fine Gael MEP Regina Doherty. Image: Newstalk
