LAST UPDATE | 1 hr ago

ELECTION POLLING COMPANY Ipsos Behaviour & Attitudes has said a lower-than-expected turnout is a reason for errors in its exit poll.

The exit poll, published at 10pm on Friday, had underestimated Fianna Fáil and overestimated Sinn Féin’s vote beyond the margin of error. It had Sinn Féin out in front on 21.1%, with Fine Gael just behind on 21% and Fianna Fáil trailing at 19.5%.

With first counts in from all 43 constituencies, the vote share was revealed to be outside the margin of error of +/-1.4%.

Fianna Fáil received 21.9%, up 2.4% on the poll, while Sinn Féin sat at 19%, down 2.1% on the exit poll.

Fine Gael’s vote share was 20.8%, down 0.2% on the poll – within the margin of error.

Speaking to RTÉ, Kieran O’Leary of Ipsos B&A pointed to the low turnout of 59.7% as the main reason for skewing the data and affecting its model.

O’Leary added that there were anecdotal reports of a higher decline in turnout among young voters than among older voters, and said it was also possible that the decline was more severe in urban areas than in rural areas.

“This could in turn lead to an over-sampling of younger voters in urban areas, which would inflate support in the poll for parties such as Sinn Féin and Social Democrats and in turn deflate the support in the poll for parties such as Fianna Fáil and Independent Ireland.”

The national turnout was down to 59.7%, marking the lowest turnout since 1923, the last time the number was below 60%.

O’Leary also said that another factor was a higher level of refusal than previous polls, noting that older voters were less likely to engage with pollsters. 

The poll was commissioned by RTÉ, The Irish Times, TG4 and Trinity College Dublin. 5,018 voters were surveyed at 253 polling stations in all constituencies on Friday.