“We are now moving in the right direction after the government of fine Gael and Labour took on a very hard mandate and we would hope to continue on with that”, he said.
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Saturday’s poll by Irish broadcasters RTE was revealed hours before Saturday’s start to a ballot count expected to run into Sunday.
The results will ask serious questions of Fine Gael leader and outgoing Taoiseach Enda Kenny over how he blew such goodwill after the party’s best ever election in 2011.
The research, part of a recent RedC opinion poll, showed support for Sinn Féin is strongest in the 18-34 and 35-54 year age categories, and weakest for those aged 55 or more.
Labour Party strategist Derek McDowell said the projected results reflected an electorate hostile to Ireland’s three establishment parties following the country’s humiliating 2010 bailout under a Fianna Fail-led government and years of tough austerity measures under the current Fine Gael-Labour coalition.
Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael party remains on track to become the largest group in parliament, but a poll in The Irish Sun newspaper indicated he may have to find new coalition partners after Labour – his junior partner in the government – faces electoral wipe-out.
Another scenario is the possibility of a rainbow coalition of Fine Gael, Labour and some smaller parties but looking at the numbers it would involve a hotchpotch of members in order to reach the magic working majority of around 80 seats. That is a significant rise over the 17 percent it achieved in 2011. Known as the Dail, parliament is due to meet again in Dublin on March 10.
Left-wing Republican party Sinn Féin is now trailing with 15 percent of the vote, the lowest level recorded for the party in an Irish Times/IPSOS MORI polls in more than four years.
Stacks of ballot boxes from around Ireland were gathered in counting centres, where they will be unlocked and their contents sorted by election officers, as the country of 4.6 million inhabitants waits to learn if protracted negotiations will be necessary to form a government. They have never worked together in government.
Unstable government could, however, slow a response to a possible “Out” vote in an European Union membership referendum in neighbor and major trade partner Britain on June 23.
“I’m self-employed. I have to deliver”.
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“I think after the election, what we will see is potentially a hung Dail”, said Richard Colwell, head of Red C polling. “If you break promises, I don’t want to know you”, he said.
