A second exit poll is showing an even worse result for the coalition with less that a third of people voting for them, and confirming Fine Gael and Labour will fall well short of a majority.
The RTE poll puts the coalition parties on a total of 31.9%, while a second exit poll published by the Irish Times last night had them on just under 34%.
There have been substantial gains for Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, Independents and smaller parties.
The RTE exit poll saw Behaviour and ATtitudes sample almost 4300 people just after they votes yesterday.
It gives Fine Gael 24.8% and Labour 7.1%, showing the outgoing coalition cannot get anything near a majority in the 32nd Dáil.
Fianna Fáil is on 22.1%, Sinn Féin 16.1% and unaligned independents on 11% with the Independent Alliance getting a further 3%.
The People Before Profit Anti Austerity Alliance has secured 4.7%, Social Democrats 3.7, Greens 3.6, Renua 2.4 and others 2.6%.
The poll is largely in line with a second exit poll published by the Irish Times last night, which did give a marginally better result to the coalition parties.
While only around a third of voters has given support to the Government, what is far from clear is what kind of an alternative they have voted for.
Counting of the votes gets underway in 40 constituencies at 9am and while the winners of most seats will be clear by later today, the actual final results may well take a number of days.
Turnout is reported to be close to two thirds of those entitled to vote.