Fianna Fáil has maintained a five point lead over Fine Gael and remains the party with the largest support, according to the results of a Behaviour and Attitudes opinion poll.

The poll, which was conducted over 12 days up to last Wednesday, shows that when undecided voters are excluded, support for Fianna Fáil stands at 28 per cent (down two points), Fine Gael is down two points to 23 per cent while support for Sinn Féin has risen four points to 18 per cent.

Support for unaligned Independents, which has dropped sharply in a series of opinion polls since the general election, was up 4 points to 12 per cent.

The poll, for The Sunday Times, places the Independent Alliance on 4 per cent support (unchanged), AAA/PBP also on 4 per cent ( down one point), the Green Party unchanged on 2 per cent while the Social Democrats and the Workers Party are both on 1 per cent support.

The Labour Party has gained one point to 7 per cent support.

The poll also found that two thirds (67 per cent) would vote for a united Ireland but this level of support dropped to a third when told that a united Ireland would result in a higher tax burden.