Sinn Fein’s presidential candidate Martin McGuinness has topped a poll on the RTE Radio’s Joe Duffy programme, with 5,947 votes.

Over 22,000 listeners contributed to the poll on Tuesday in which they were asked to text their preference for the presidential nomination.

Senator David Norris was just behind McGuinness with 5,732 votes, but now looks unlikely to be nominated  on the ballot paper for the forthcoming election.

Fine Gael’s candidate Gay Mitchell received 2,668 votes, followed by Independent candidate Mary Davis with 2,314 votes, while Michael D Higgins got 2,194.

Dana received 1,424 votes and Sean Gallagher came in final place with 1,290 votes.
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Meanwhile Martin McGuinness’s entrance into the election race has once again highlighted the "major anomaly" that people living north of the border cannot vote in Republic, his Sinn Fein colleagues have said.

"A lot of people have been contacting me and us expressing their resentment, their disgust at not being able to exercise their vote in an Irish presidential election,"  West Tyrone Assembly member Barry McElduff told the Press Association.

"A lot of people have been contacting me and us expressing their resentment, their disgust at not being able to exercise their vote in an Irish presidential election," he said.

"People from all over the north are saying for example that Latvians can vote here in Belfast in Latvian home elections and there's this major anomaly, this major wrong, that citizens in the north of Ireland, Irish citizens, defined under the Good Friday Agreement as such, cannot vote in an Irish presidential election.

"You are allowed to stand as a candidate, you are allowed to become president but you can't vote, so it's a major anomaly that needs to be corrected," he concluded.