Irish PM's party sees poll lead narrow ahead of election

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris' Fine Gael party has seen its lead over both its main coalition partner and the main opposition party narrow significantly ahead of a general election on Friday, an opinion poll showed.

Fine Gael is still the most popular party with the support of 22% of respondents, but that is down from 26% three weeks ago, according to the Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks opinion poll, which was taken on Thursday and Friday.

Fine Gael's main coalition partner Fianna Fail remained on 20%, while opposition Sinn Fein was up two points to 20%.

The bounce in support for Fine Gael triggered by Harris' appointment as party leader in April is "now history" after a series of campaign missteps, the Sunday Independent said.

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Sinn Fein, which had a commanding opinion poll lead until earlier this year, needs to finish well ahead of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail to cut off their rivals' path to re-election, since both have pledged to govern together again without it.