A new poll suggests that Fianna Fail is two points ahead of Fine Gael in the general election race - with Sinn Fein also surging upwards.
The new Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI study shows a six point drop for Fine Gael, from 29% to 23%, compared to the last such poll in October.
It says that thanks to this Fianna Fail is now in front with 25% - no change from October.
In perhaps the biggest shock though, Sinn Fein surged seven points in the new poll, up to 21% from 14% just three months ago.
The Green Party sits on 8%, no change, while Labour is at 5%, down one point from October. 18% said they would vote for independents and other parties.
The poll was taken from January 16-18 - after the election campaigns had begun. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 1,200 eligible voters at 120 locations around the country. The margin of error is 2.8%.
Another interesting indicator of public sentiment is that SF's leader, Mary Lou McDonald, is the only party leader to have increased her personal approval rating.
She stands in second in those ratings, which are as follows: Varadkar 35% (-16), McDonald 34% (+4), Martin 33% (-5), Howlin 17% (-3). Government satisfaction is down 15 points since October, to 27% now.
Simon Harris was put on the spot when the poll results broke as he was appearing on the panel of RTE's Claire Byrne Live show.
He managed to somehow put a positive spun on the dismal score for FG by saying the gap had decreased from 12 points to two points in just two days.
He urged everyone that opinion polls come with a serious "buyer beware" health warning.
The results are somewhat at odds with another poll that emerged at the weekend.
That Sunday Times/Behaviour & Attitudes poll suggested that Micheal Martin's Fianna Fail was standing at 32% - a whopping 12 points ahead of Fine Gael on 20%.
Sinn Fein stood at 19% in that poll.
