Dramatic exit poll points way as almost half favour Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael coalition

Good morning and welcome to an unusual Saturday edition of the politics digest.
Last night’s dramatic exit poll results, which showed the three biggest parties clustered together around the 20-21 per cent mark, has pointed the way to the likely outcome of the general election.
The counting of votes will begin in the 32 count centres around the country at 9am this morning, but it will be some hours before a picture begins to emerge.
In the meantime, however, there is a rich array of data from the exit poll that casts further light on and explains the votes cast yesterday.
Almost half of voters in yesterday’s general election favour a coalition government based on the combination of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, according to The Irish Times/RTÉ/TG4/TCD exit poll.
Nearly a third of voters (31 per cent) said they would prefer a coalition of just Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil; a further 9 per cent preferred a government of those two parties plus independents; while a further 9 per cent said they would like to see a government of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and one or more smaller parties.
Combined, this is a total of 49 per cent of voters in the exit poll who want to see a Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil-led government.
The next most popular choice is a government led by Sinn Féin without Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, which was chosen by 22 per cent. Another 7 per cent said they wanted to see a Fianna Fáil-Sinn Féin coalition (including just 9 per cent of Fianna Fáil voters), while 21 per cent said they wanted to see “something else”.
The most popular choice for taoiseach is the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, who was the preferred choice of 35 per cent. He pips the Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, who is on 34 per cent, while the Fine Gael leader Simon Harris is on 27 per cent. Just 5 per cent gave no response.
Asked which was the most important issue when deciding how to vote, housing/homelessness was the clear leader on 28 per cent, followed by the cost of living on 19 per cent and health on 17 per cent.
Economic stability (9 per cent), climate change (4 per cent), crime (2 per cent), local transport and roads (2 per cent) and childcare (2 per cent), all played lesser roles.
Immigration – which had been prominent in the list of issues of public concern for much of the year – played a minor role, nominated by just 6 per cent.
The housing issue was more prominent among younger voters with 42 per cent of those under 34 nominating it as the most important issue.
Over half (52 per cent) of voters say their standard of living has stayed the same over the past 12 months, while 35 per cent say it has worsened and 13 per cent say it has improved.
Those who voted for Sinn Féin (49 per cent), People Before Profit (49 per cent) and Aontú (41 per cent) were much more likely to say their standard of living had worsened.
The poll, which is a joint project of The Irish Times, RTÉ, TG4 and the Political Science Department of Trinity College Dublin, was conducted by Ipsos B&A among 5,018 voters as they left 253 polling stations across all 43 constituencies yesterday.
All respondents were asked about how they voted and then a series of other questions, the results of which will be released throughout this morning.
In order to provide as many questions as possible, the sample was divided by four and each quarter – about 1,250 people – was asked different questions. This is the same size as a nationally representative poll as conducted normally for The Irish Times by Ipsos B&A. The margin of error is about 3 per cent.
Sign up for Politics push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up for the Inside Politics newsletter to get our politics team’s take direct to your inbox.