Sinn Féin still on top as Fine Gael face setback in the polls

Sinn Féin remains the most popular party in the country according to the latest political polls, however, support for Mary Lou McDonald's party has taken a slight hit for the third month.

The latest Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll found support for Sinn Féin is now at 31 per cent, down 1 percentage point since the last time of asking.

While the results may be a cause of concern for Taoiseach Leo Varadkar after Fine Gael dipped 3 percentage points to 22 per cent, Tánaiste Micheál Martin's Fianna Fáil jumped to 18 per cent, up from 16 per cent in the previous poll.

The slump in Fine Gael support may partially be explained by a bruising few weeks for Mr Varadkar's party which saw the resignation of Meath West TD Damien English from his role as junior minister and controversy surrounding Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe's election expenses.

The Green Party remained unchanged on 4 per cent, accompanied by the Social Democrats, Labour and Aontú which were all up 1 percentage point.

Solidarity-PBP fell back to 3 per cent, while Independents/Other held the remaining 10 per cent of the vote.

Offering more food-for-though for Ms McDonald and her party, 43 per cent of those surveyed said in a forced choice they would opt for a FG/FF/Green coalition (up 2 percentage points), while 41 per cent said they would choose a SF-led coalition which would exclude FG and FF (down 2 percentage points). The proportion of people who were unsure of which option they would pick remained unchanged at 16 per cent.