Resilience of Fianna Fáil in Irish Times/Ipsos poll masks deep existential crisis

Welcome to this week’s IT Sunday, a selection of the best Irish Times journalism for our subscribers. This week we published our latest Irish Times/Ipsos opinion poll which revealed a significant shift in political support, compared with our previous poll four months ago.

There has been no bounce for Fine Gael and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar following his return to the top job, writes Political Editor Pat Leahy, who notes that a vigorous kite flying exercise by Varadkar and other Fine Gael Ministers on budget tax cuts for middle income earners does not appear to have resonated.

“Nor will the nervous nellies in Fine Gael be reassured by the lift in Fianna Fáil’s polling fortunes. The party sees a rise in its support today by three points to 21 per cent. In the 11 opinion polls published by the Irish Times since the last election, Fianna Fáil has been higher than this on only one occasion, after the lifting of lockdown in April 2022.”

The poll also contains findings of a lack of enthusiasm among voters for using projected budget surpluses for tax cuts, with a strong preference instead for spending on public services and investing in infrastructure.

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Another finding was that while 90 per cent of voters agree climate action should be a Government priority, support for some of the potential measures; driving or flying less, is much more muted.

Our graphic designer Paul Scott has pulled all the detail from the Irish Times/Ipsos opinion poll together into a series of graphics illustrating the findings.

In his opinion column on the poll findings Jack Sheehan suggests the surprising resilience of the Fianna Fáil vote hides a deep, existential crisis in the party. While the brand remains toxic to younger voters for most under 30 it is more accurate to say it is increasingly irrelevant. Sheehan notes that its ideological contradictions are dragging it down and a cleaving into an urban centrist grouping and a rural conservative one. “In an increasingly ideologically defined Irish political moment, the fracturing of Fianna Fáil and its vote poses a serious risk of electoral success for the hard right.”

For more on the poll, Hugh Linehan, Pat Leahy and Harry McGee discussed the findings on the Inside Politics podcast on Friday.

The National Economic Dialogue, which took place on Monday, saw employers, union and the Government united on one point: house prices need to fall.

But Pat Leahy suspects that the Government position on this is more nuanced and that, one year out from an election, the Coalition would not be at all keen to see 1.2 million homeowners facing a sharp fall in the value of their home.

“You can work out the political implications of that yourself. It certainly suggests that Government policy is walking what may be an impossible tightrope – trying to make houses more affordable, without seeing prices fall. In fact, maybe it’s more than a tightrope – maybe it’s an outright contradiction. Which would also mean that the Government’s entire housing policy is doomed to fail.”

The Republic of Ireland’s defeat in Greece on Friday night leaves them with a mountain to climb if they are to qualify for Euro 2024. Ken Early was in Athens and sums up a night to forget for Stephen Kenny.

On Monday, Andy Farrell will set the Irish rugby team on a path to the Rugby World Cup and Johnny Watterson expects that part of the preparation “to involve identifying exactly what went wrong for Leinster in their one-point defeats to Munster and La Rochelle. The group is too influential to leave that elephant in the room.”

One of many post Covid societal changes is how and where we shop and recently a number of large shopping centres have been put up for sale as the retail sector lunches from a pandemic to a cost-of-living crisis. Most industry experts expect that the investor appetite to own these centres is heading into uncharted waters, writes Ian Curran in this analysis.

On Father’s Day, Joanna Hunt looks at the flexibility afforded to many dads by working from home or hybrid working since the pandemic, and how this has allowed them take on a greater share of childcare and other domestic responsibilities as they are spending less tome commuting to the office.

Being able to work from home has allowed many fathers to take on a greater share of childcare and other domestic responsibilities. They don’t want to give it up.

The hour commute from Kevin Bennett’s home near Ashbourne to his employer, Vodafone based in Sandyford, disappeared. “That extra time in the morning where I didn’t have to get up to sit in traffic – it gave a little bit of respite for me to say to my wife Aisling, I’ll just take her off you and you go back to sleep.”

In this week’s On the Money newsletter, Dominic Coyle writes that making a will are not a foretelling of doom but an act of common sense, inexpensive and easy to draw up as long as you observe simple rules. In short, if you’re over 18 and have any assets, you should make a will. Sign up here to receive the newsletter straight to your inbox every Friday.

As always, there is much more on irishtimes.com, including rundowns of all the latest movies in our film reviews, tips for the best restaurants in our food section and all the latest in sport. There are plenty more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here.

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