Victory Looks Likely For Michael D Higgins As First Exit Polls Come In

The Irish Times has published the first exit poll with victory looking likely for incumbent Michael D Higgins.

The Irish Times / Ipsos MRBI poll projects a 56% vote for Michael D, which will be enough to elect him on the first count

Turn out was low with little public enthusiasm for the contest, unlike the abortion referendum.

Over 4,000 people were polled across the country and it is estimated that the poll has an accuracy of +/- 1.5%.

Peter Casey, who originally polled at 1% earlier in the campaign looks set to take approximately 21% of the vote, second only to Michael D.

His campaign was marked by racist comments towards the traveller community.

His remarks about the traveller community and his thoughts on the country's welfare state seem to have helped the Donegal man's campaign enormously.

The rest of the candidates have polled in single figures, failing to garner any real public support.

The poll suggests that Sean Gallagher will finish 22 percentage points lower than in 2011 with only 7% of the vote.

Sinn Féin's candidate Liadh Ní Riada looks set to come away with a mere 8% of the vote.

Senator Joan Freeman managed to get 6% of the vote according to poll results, while Gavin Duffy came in last with only 2% of the vote.

The referendum to remove blasphemy from the constitution was passed by a large majority of 69%

Younger voters were more in favour of its removal, while older votes voted more evenly in favour of retaining and deleting the article.

You know what this means? Seven more years of Bród and Shadow!