The first general election exit poll has shown Fianna Fail with a strong lead.
Fianna Fail was the first preference of 43 per cent of some 3,000 voters interviewed during yesterday's voting, while Fine Gael was the choice of 22 per cent, the poll by Lansdowne Market Research for RTÉ found.
Labour was the choice of 12 per cent of voters while Sinn Féin took seven per cent.
The poll appeared to confirm the trend of early official returns from three constituencies where voting was conducted electronically.
They gave Fianna Fáil six of 12 Dáil seats, a gain of one from its showing in the same constituencies in the 1997 election.
Mr Roger Jupp, releasing the exit poll results on RTE, said they did not necessarily point to what pre-election polls indicated could be a landslide victory for Fianna Fáil. He said the outcome would depend on the final count in each of the constituencies to see who gets there.