Opinion poll: Holly Cairns is most popular party leader 

Holly Cairns is the most popular leader among voters

Holly Cairns is the most popular leader among voters with her Social Democrats party also increasing support in the most recent opinion poll.

The Cork South-West TD, whose party gained a Dáil seat with the promotion of Daniel Ennis in the recent Dublin Central by-election, now has personal approval rating of 47, while the Social Democrats is up two points to 10% support.

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald is the second most popular leader with an approval rating of 46, but her party has dropped four points to 21%.

The Business Post/RedC poll places Independent Ireland member and Cork South-West TD Michael Collins is on an approval rating of 45, the third most popular political leader in the country.

To track favourability, respondents were asked to score leaders on a scale of 0 to 100. Taoiseach Micheál Martin and his coalition colleague Tánaiste Simon Harris have identical approval ratings, both on 36 points.

They are below Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín who has a favourability rating of 41 with Labour leader Ivana Bacik scoring 38 points. Green Party leader Roderic O'Gorman is on 31.

Support for the two main Government parties remains relatively static, with Fine Gael picking up one point to bring it to 17% support, while Fianna Fáil is down one point to 15%.

Among the other parties, both Independent Ireland and Aontú are now on 7%; Labour and People Before Profit/Solidarity are also both on 4%; while the Green Party is closely behind on 3%.

The poll was carried out between May 22 and May 27, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.