Gay and lesbian voters are more likely to vote for the Labour Party than any other in next week's election, research carried out by a gay marketing agency suggests.
The Green Party also scored highly with lesbian and gay voters, according to the research by Out Now Consulting for the widely read gay publication GCN.
Some 20 per cent of more than 1,000 people polled said they intended to vote for the Labour Party. A total of 16 per cent said they would vote for the Greens, while support for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael was 11 per cent and 7 per cent respectively, according to the Out Now GCN Ireland Gay Community Survey.
Some 6 per cent of gay and lesbian voters intend to cast their ballot for the Progressive Democrats - a figure that puts support for the party among gay voters some four percentage points higher than in the electorate generally based on the most recent Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll.
A total of 3 per cent of gay voters say they will cast their votes for Sinn Féin, with the same number opting to vote for independent candidates, according to the research. Eight per cent of gay voters say they will not vote at all.
Some 1,191 respondents were surveyed between October 2006 and January 2007.
GCNeditor Brian Finnegan said: "This is the first time the voting patterns of Ireland's sizeable gay community have been measured and independently analysed. They show that politicians have a lot to learn about Irish gays and lesbians."
Ian Johnson, founder and chief executive officer of Out Now, said the research was a "major leap forward" in providing knowledge about the lives of Irish lesbians and gay men.