Dublin (dpa) - Counting began on Sunday in Ireland's general election, with an exit poll suggesting that the three largest parties are tied.

The exit poll suggested that ruling centre-right party Fine Gael had 22.4 per cent of the vote, to tie with left-wing republican Sinn Fein, which had 22.3 per cent of the vote, and opposition Fianna Fail, with 22.2 per cent, according to the exit poll carried out for The Irish Times daily newspaper and the national broadcaster RTE.

The exit poll took the views of 5,000 people after they voted in Saturday's election. It has a margin of error of less than 2 per cent. It took only first-preference votes into account.

There are 159 seats to be filled in 40 constituencies throughout the country.

Opinion polls suggest that Fine Gael failed to sell its message of economic recovery, with Sinn Fein - once viewed as the political wing of the terrorist Irish Republican Army (IRA) - edging ahead of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.

Both parties have ruled out coalition with Sinn Fein.

Under Ireland's electoral system of proportional representation with a single transferable vote, counts can take a long time. Final official results may not be available until late Sunday.

However, early unofficial tallies carried out by the parties, which tend to be very precise, will be available within a few hours of the count starting, and a clear picture should emerge by Sunday afternoon.