Sinn Féin narrowly beats out Fine Gael as most popular political party in Ireland, according to latest opinion poll

Leo Varadkar's party is up by 1%, meanwhile, Mary Lou McDonald's party dropped four points.

Sinn Féin has narrowly beaten out Fine Gael as the most popular political party in Ireland, according to the latest political opinion poll. According to The Sunday Times latest Behaviour and Attitudes poll, Mary Lou McDonald's party's lead has halved to five points.

Meanwhile, both parties have managed to bridge a pretty significant lead against Taoiseach Micheál Martin's party, Fianna Fáil.

Fianna Fail remains lagging behind at 20% - its average poll rating over the last six successive surveys undertaken by the publication.

Meanwhile, Leo Varadkar's party, Fine Gael, is up a point to 25 per cent. Sinn Féin also saw a four-point drop to 30%.

The polling window for the opinion poll overlapped with the final week of the Dublin Bay South by-election which took place last week and saw Labour's Ivana Bacik win the seat. Last month, The Sunday Times Behaviour and Attitudes Poll reported that Sinn Féin had taken a significant 10 point lead over Fine Gael, also eclipsing Fianna Fáil by 14 points. The party, led by Mary Lou McDonald was up by four points to 34%, meanwhile, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar's party has dropped four points to 24% and Fianna Fáil is down two points to 20%. The Green Party was also down one point to 4% and independent candidates went up a point to 9%.