FIANNA FÁIL HAS a narrow lead over Sinn Féin as the country’s most popular party in a new opinion poll, despite dropping two percentage points.

A poll conducted by the Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks suggests that 23% of respondents would give Fianna Fáil their first preference if a general election was held immediately.

Sinn Féin was the party of choice for 22% of respondents, a slight rise of one percentage point since the previous iteration of this poll in April.

The latest poll was carried out on Thursday and Friday of this week with a sample size of 1,649.

Fine Gael dropped one point to 20%, leaving the three largest parties almost neck and neck.

Support for the “Independents and others” category remained stable at 9%, as did support for the Social Democrats at 8%.

The Independent Ireland party rose slightly by one percentage point to 5%.

Support for Aontú, Labour, Solidarity-People Before Profit and the Green Party all remained steady at 4%, 4%m 3% and 2% respectively.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin’s approval rating was the highest of party leaders at 46% despite a fall of three percentage points.

Fine Gael’s Simon Harris and Social Democrats’ Holly Cairns were tied at 40%, followed by Labour’s Ivana Bacik on 37% and Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald on 36%.

Approval for Minister for Housing James Browne, the Fianna Fáil TD at the centre of the controversy surrounding the appointment of a leader of a new housing delivery office, was at just 30%.

This weekend marks 100 days since the government was formed after the election.

The Journal politics editor Christina Finn writes today that the government has struggled to gain momentum and was mired in controversy from the start.