DUBLIN (Reuters) – Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris’ Fine Gael party has slipped into third place after losing a quarter of its support in less than two weeks, according to one of the final opinion polls before Friday’s general election.
Support for Fine Gael has fallen to 19% from 25%, the Irish Times/Ipsos B&A poll showed on Monday. Fine Gael’s main coalition partner Fianna Fail was up two points to 21%, while opposition party Sinn Fein was up one point to 20%.
The poll comes after a series of campaign missteps by Harris, including walking away from a care worker who was complaining about conditions, a clip of which went viral.
The poll was conducted from Wednesday to Saturday, so would not have fully taken account of the incident from Friday evening for which Harris was forced to make a public apology.
Two of the three main parties will need to join together to form a coalition government, but Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are seen as the most likely partners as they have both pledged to govern without Sinn Fein.
Another poll on Sunday showed Fine Gael falling 4 points to 22% with Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein both on 20%.
(Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Sachin Ravikumar)
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