Taoiseach Simon Harris’s popularity ‘no issue’ for Fianna Fáil leader and Tánaiste Micheál Martin, who aims to prove the polls wrong

Mr Harris is the most popular political leader after his support increased since the summer by 17 percentage points to 55pc. His Fine Gael party is on 27pc (up four points), ahead of Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil, on 20pc and 19pc respectively, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos poll.

It follows a recent trend of positive poll results for Mr Harris, who took over as party leader and Taoiseach five months ago.

Mr Martin, the Fianna Fáil leader, pointed to polls ahead of the local elections, which had his party in "a distant" third place, but they won the greatest number of council seats.

Fianna Fáil emerged as the largest party in local government, winning 248 seats, with Fine Gael on 245.

Mr Martin said: "So, a lot of work to be done. It's all there to play for and we're going to work very hard at constituency level, national level and then we do everything we can to out-poll the polls."

Mr Harris has said he is "grateful" to the Irish people, but added that "polls come and polls go".

"I'm a new Taoiseach, but I'm in politics long enough to not read too much into them," he said at the National Ploughing Championships in Co Laois.

"It's always better to be up than down. I'm very grateful to the people of Ireland for giving me a chance, for giving me an opportunity, for being willing to listen.

"There will be a general election in due course. My position on this hasn't changed. Right now, I want the Government to get on with its work, and I want the Government to finish its work as well."

Sinn Féin has accused the Government of handing a 'massive tax break' to high earners

Mr Martin was asked if he was worried about the support the Fine Gael leader was getting, to which he replied: "Not necessarily, to be frank, because we do our own research and work as well.

"The multi-seat proportional representation electoral system, there's a combination of factors involved in terms of constituency strengths.

"But, as I said, in the May poll and in all the polling before the local elections, we were in a distant third and we came out first in terms of seats in the local elections."

Separately, Sinn Féin has accused the Government of handing a "massive tax break" to high earners with "gold-plated pensions".

The party's finance spokesman, Pearse Doherty, branded the move to increase the Standard Fund Threshold (SFT) as "madness".

On Wednesday, Finance Minister Jack Chambers announced that the €2m SFT would be increased by €200,000 in 2026, followed by three similar rises in the following three years to bring it up to €2.8m in 2029.

The move followed anger among some of the country's most senior gardaí, who wrote to the Justice Minister and Garda Commissioner saying punitive pension-tax implications prevented them from applying for the deputy commissioner job.

The deadline to apply has passed, but the move by the Finance Minister follows the publication of an independent examination of the threshold.

The threshold is the amount of money people can have in their pension pot before being subject to additional tax liabilities. Mr Doherty raised the decision in the Dáil yesterday.

"Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil want the taxpayer to fund these gold-plated pensions until they reach €2.8m in size. Madness," he said.

"Asking those who work in Tesco or nurses or guards or firefighters or teachers to help build up the pension pots of those at the very top to the tune of €2.8m so they can retire with the state supported pension of €100,000 per year, is madness."