A new opinion poll has shown that Fine Gael remains the most popular party in the State with 29 per cent support.

The Paddy Power Red C poll shows a rise of 1 per cent since a similar poll carried out by Red C in June. It is the first Red C poll since the passing of the abortion legislation.

The poll for the bookmaker, asking voters about preferences if the general election was held tomorrow, was carried out on a random sample of 1,002 adults by landline and mobile phone between Monday and Wednesday of this week

Fianna Fáil is in second place with 22 per cent and has retained the same level of support as in the Red C June poll. This is despite questions being raised recently by some party members over the leadership of micheal Martin.

Fianna Fáil had been building up support earlier this year when an Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll showed the party held 26 per cent of the voters' support, compared with 24 per cent support for Fine Gael and 9 per cent for Labour.

Decline in support for the Labour party appears to have levelled off in this latest poll at 11 per cent, 1 per cent below the June poll.

Sinn Féin support has fallen 2 per cent to 15 per cent over all while support for Independents has risen by 2 per centage points to 23 per cent. The support for Independents has not been ahead of Fianna Fáil since June 2012 when it was at 19 per cent compared with Fianna Fáil’s 18 per cent.

The strongest cohort supporting Independents were men , people residing in Dublin and people aged 35 to 54 . These were the demographics where Fianna Fail had low support.

Results in the last general election saw Fine Gael receive 36 per cent of first preference votes, Labour receive 19 per cent and Fianna Fáil receive 17 per cent.