A new poll shows Fine Gael is on course to retain three of four seats in the Taoiseach's home constituency of Mayo.

The Millward Brown poll, published in today's Irish Independent, involved face-to-face interviews with 502 adults, at 46 sampling points in Mayo, between February 9 and 11.

The margin of error is 4.4%.

The poll of the four seat Mayo constituency shows Enda Kenny on 24%, followed by his party colleague Michael Ring on 23%.

Fianna Fáil's Dara Calleary is on 19% while Sinn Féin's Rose Conway-Walsh stands at 11%.

Coming up behind her is Fine Gael's Michelle Mulherin on 9% with Fianna Fáil's Lisa Chambers at 8%.

But the Group Political Editor of Independent News and Media, Kevin Doyle, says the poll shows, when second preferences are considered, Michelle Mulherin is likely to take the fourth seat.

Mr Doyle said: "We also asked about second preferences and about where the vote would go after that and that's where Michelle Mulherin makes the big gains, because over 50% of people are going to give their second prefernece to Fine Gael as well.

"With Michael Ring and Enda Kenny likely to get a quota on the first round of votes there's a huge transfer on to Michelle Mulherin and that should keep her ahead of particularly Rose Conway-Walsh who really is not transfer friendly at all."