By Steve Neville
Health was a major factor in how people voted in the general election, according to an exit poll.
The IPSOS MRBI poll - carried out by the Irish Times, RTÉ, TG4 and UCD - has found that 32% of those polled felt health was the most important factor in deciding how to vote.
Last night's exit poll found that the three main parties were all tied.
The figures have predicted that 22.4% of voters backed Fine Gael, while Sinn Féin looks set to get 22.3% and Fianna Fáil could get 22.2% support.
The exit poll surveyed around 5,000 people at 250 polling stations across the country yesterday.
RTÉ stated that "Questions on who someone voted for, their age, gender and what region they are from were asked of all respondents, and have a margin of error of 1.3%.
"However, in order to give an insight into the reasons why people voted certain ways, 15 additional questions were also asked of respondents, who were split into five different groups of 1,000 people and asked three questions each.
"These 15 questions have a margin of error of 3.1%."
When asked about what was "most important to you in deciding how to vote", health and housing were the major factors.
32% said health was the most important with housing and homelessness making up 26%.
Brexit made up merely 1%, with 8% saying pension age was most important and climate change was 6%.
The full result of the exit poll question was:
- Housing/homelessness 26%
- Pension age 8%
- Jobs 6%
- Climate change 6%
- Taxation 4%
- Crime 3%
- Childcare 3%
- Immigration 1%
- Brexit 1%
- "Something else" 6%
- "No response" 5%
