Ardee woman Mairead McGuinness is odds-on to retain her European seat in Friday’s elections, according to the results of a new Ipsos MRBI opinion poll published today in the Irish Times.
The poll found that the former Ear to the Ground presenter and Fine Gael candidate had 18% support.
It also predicts that Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy will join her in Europe as he has been tipped to take 15% of the vote.
The two remaining seats in the Midlands North-West constituency are then likely to go to Fianna Fáil’s Pat the Cope Gallagher and independent Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, who both took 12% each.
Their biggest challengers are Marian Harkin (10%), Lorraine Higgins (8%) and Thomas Byrne (8%).
That means that local candidates Mark Dearey of the Green Party (3%) and independent Mark Fitzsimons are unlikely to feature in the overall shake-up, with the latter taking less than half a percent of the vote in the opinion poll, which covered 150 sampling points throughout all constituencies in the Midlands North-West area.