A massive 35% of people said they would vote for Sinn Fein if government formation fails and there is a second election, according to an Amarach research poll of 1040 Irish adults conducted for Extra.ie.

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael polled at 17% and 18% respectively, which would severely reduce the number of seats for both of the civil war parties in the case of a second election.

The poll, conducted on Monday evening, indicates that Sinn Fein would benefit more than any other party if there was a second ballot and receive a massive swing of 10.5 points in first preference votes.

This return of the vote for Sinn Fein would likely see the party with around 76 seats — the number that Fine Gael returned in 2011 when they secured 36% of the popular vote.

The outcome of Sinn Fein securing such a high percentage of the popular vote would mean that a left government would be almost a certainty for the first time in the history of the state.

An election result like this would be an utter disaster for Fine Gael and Fianna Fail who would see their number in Dail Eireann drop to roughly 20 seats a piece.

The most popular Government coalition on the results of the latest election according to respondents, was Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein at 31% followed closely by Fianna Fail and Fine Gael on 30%.

A Sinn Fein and Fine Gael coalition was the least popular option at 9% while three in ten respondents answered none of the above three options.

Meanwhile, the concept of having a rotating Taoiseach throughout the term of government proved unpopular with 46% of respondents saying they were not in favour of the idea, 27% replying that they were and 26% saying they didn’t know.

In the same poll, it was revealed that almost half of voters want to see a Sinn Fein Taoiseach and that they would vote for whatever party that fixed the housing crisis.

The margin of error was plus or minus 3%.