Political parties now try to find out what people want and then build an election campaign around these issues. Liam Reid examines the new style
Back then, life was a lot simpler for a political leader in Ireland in one respect.
When Éamon de Valera got to his feet in the Dáil in January 1922 to speak against the Anglo Irish Treaty, he told TDs that whenever he wanted to know what the Irish people were thinking, he "had only to examine my own heart".
Eighty three years on, de Valera's political successors might well believe that they know in their hearts what the voters want, but they are bolstering those heart-felt feelings with some very expensive advice.
Political parties in 2006 have found what they think is a more effective method of gauging public opinion. They ask. Or more accurately, they spend hundreds of thousands of euro employing professionals to do the asking, and more often than not, the taxpayer is footing the bill.
Irish parties are still keen to talk up the unique nature of Irish politics, where the political clinic and personal contact enable even cabinet ministers to keep in touch with the common voter.
However, all three main political parties have imported a suite of sophisticated methods from the US and Britain to find out what the voters want, and are using them extensively.
The political clinic might still be the mainstay, but professional pollsters, researchers and analysts from both at home and the US are now a fixture in the Irish political landscape, albeit one that is well hidden and little spoken about.
The methods, from polling to statistical analysis to focus groups, are used by Fianna Fáil, Labour and Fine Gael to test public opinion, not only on party support, but on a range of policies and issues in order to finesse their message.
The methods are not simply used at election time - the activity is ongoing and the money being spent on such activity has risen at a significant rate.
In the last three years Labour, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have spent in the region of €1 million between them using a battery of devices to gauge and analyse public opinion. Well over half of the €1 million has come from the taxpayer's pocket.
Over the coming 15 months the money spent on such activity is set to rise even further as the parties prepare for the general election. Every party now has its election planning structures in place, and the use of professional consultants and pollsters will form a key part of their preparations.
Between now and next year, Fine Gael plans to spend €1.5 million on its election preparations and a further €1.5 million during the campaign itself.
As much as 20 per cent of that will go on what could generally be described as political "market research".
FIANNA FÁIL WAS THE FIRST party to introduce such methods into the country on any significant level, and reputedly used them to great effect in the 2002 general election.
The party was essentially copying the tried and tested methods used by both the Democrats in the US and New Labour in Britain. Normally it involves a range of measures, all co-ordinated by professional party strategists, often with the help of highly paid political consultants from abroad.
One of the main elements is public attitude research, where the parties engage professional polling companies such as Behaviour and Attitudes and TNS/mrbi to test public opinion on what could broadly be described as policy issues. This involves in some cases specific polls on issues, to identify preferences or concerns, or ranking various issues in terms of importance.
For example, a party might carry out a telephone poll to identify the main issues on voters' minds, and get them to rank them in order of priority, or identify which aspect of a major issue is of most concern, and whom they believe to be responsible.
The second major tool is the focus group, best described as a formal chat with a group of between six and 12 people, broadly representative of certain groups in society, and which is broadly used to gauge attitudes to policies.
The focus group is also used as a tracking device for public opinion as policies are rolled out and projects presented.
Both methods are also used as to assess the public perception of parties and specific politicians, on issues such as trustworthiness, leadership and dynamism. The information is fed into the slogans and campaigns that it is hoped will grab public attention.
The third main tool, used by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, is the professional political consultant. Both parties have hired two separate and expensive political consultancy firms from the US to advise on polling and focus groups and interpret the results.
Shrum Devine Donilon has acted for Fianna Fáil and Greenberg has worked for Fine Gael to advise them on policy formulation. The parties also use domestic firms in polling and market research to help home in on public attitudes.
Fianna Fáil uses one of the top market research companies in the country, Behaviour and Attitudes. Fine Gael has tended in the past to use TNS/mrbi, the same market research company that carries out opinion polls for The Irish Times. Labour in recent years has used Behaviour and Attitudes and Ogilvy, an advertising and marketing agency, for its market research.
Alongside the polling companies, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael also carry out private constituency opinion polls as part of the process of selecting candidates, while other parties are also known to have done similar work, often using a combination of volunteers and privately hired experts to oversee them.
The whole process is then overseen by party strategists, who then feed the information to the senior politicians in the party and a tight group of advisers.
In Fianna Fáil, the Taoiseach's former adviser Peter McDonagh, who lives abroad, is retained on an ongoing basis for this work, reporting to the party's general secretary, SeáDorgan, the Taoiseach and PJ Mara, who is now centrally involved again in planning the party's next general election campaign.
In Fine Gael, press adviser Ciarán Conolon and the party's head of policy, Gerry Naughton, oversee the process.
In Labour Pat Rabbitte's chef de cabinet, Adrian Langan, is now one of the key people analysing the research data, along with the party's communications adviser Liam Cahill and economic adviser Colm O'Riordan. Langan, a former communications consultant, has considerable experience in running focus groups for the Yes campaign during the 2002 Nice Referendum.
OVERALL, THE METHODS HAVE helped parties develop their slogans, such as Fianna Fáil's "Unity, Prosperity, Community" and Fine Gael's "Honest Leadership", and point them in the direction of issues.
Fine Gael's obsession with crime is one example, while Labour's recent campaign on "a fair place to work and live" would both have been influenced by the research and outside consultants. The amount of such research activity, and indeed its potential benefits became quite apparent at the weekend when it was revealed that focus group research carried out last year for Labour senator Brendan Ryan and passed on to Labour's leadership, identified that there was a desire for a tougher line on immigration by voters.
Labour sources last week denied that Labour leader Pat Rabbitte's recent remarks on the potential need to tighten up on migration into Ireland were as a direct result of focus group research.
However such information would have indicated to him and his advisers that if he raised the issue, he was unlikely to face a public backlash, which is valuable information indeed for a politician. The Labour Party, though, is the lowest spender in terms of the use of market research and polling.
Figures from the Standards in Public Office Commission, the watchdog on political spending and ethics, show that polling and professional research activity are extensive (see panel). This spending is confined to parliamentary initiatives, meaning it has to be related to policy research, such as identifying public concerns and so on.
Fianna Fáil officials claim that a significant portion of the €246,000 was spent on other measures, such as media monitoring.
Even accepting this, a more modest sum of €120,000 would still allow for a lot of research and consultancy work. For example, a nationwide poll costs in the region of €10,000 to €15,000 to carry out, meaning that if they simply spent it on this, they could carry out polls and focus groups on a monthly basis if they desire.
The amounts published by the commission are not a complete picture, however, and do not include the significant expenditure of the parties from non-Governmental sources on polling and professional consultants. The parties are barred from spending State funding on developing electoral strategy and polling on the popularity of their parties, expenditure which again runs into tens of thousands of euro. For example, expenditure by Fine Gael on Greenberg consultants, believed to run to well over €50,000 a year, is not included in the figures.
However, even with such spending, and the evidence of its use, political parties in the Republic do not like to discuss it. All of this work is done in a highly secretive way. The organisation of the work and the results are kept away from most TDs and confined to a handful of senior advisers and politicians. Despite the evidence, political handlers are also keen to play down its value.
Research and polling: what parties are spending
Figures filed with the Standards in Public Office Commission show that for the latest year available, the three main political parties spent more than €400,00 of State funding on what is described as "polling or public attitude sampling in connection with parliamentary debates or initiatives".
Under this heading, Fianna Fáil spent €246,055 on what it described in the return as "polling and strategy setting". Party officials state that an unspecified amount of this was spent on media monitoring.
Fine Gael spent €89,569 under the same heading while Labour spent €25,428. Fine Gael spent a further €24,901 on research, sampling and facilitation. There are no figures available for 2005, with the exception of spending on the Meath and Kildare by-elections, which show that Fianna Fáil spent 13,794 on opinion polls.
Returns for the 2004 European elections show significant spending on opinion polls by Labour and Fianna Fáil, but mainly Fine Gael. Fianna Fáil spent more than 10,000 on an opinion poll in Leinster. Fine Gael paid TNS/mrbi nearly 20,000 for an opinion poll in Dublin and Leinster, as part of spending of 32,065 on market research. Labour spent 7,187 on a TNS/ mrbi poll. Fine Gael candidates Simon Coveney, Jim Higgins and Maireád McGuinness also spent nearly €8,000 between them on polling, the majority of it, 6,413, by Jim Higgins.
In 2003 Labour out-spent Fine Gael on polling and sampling of public opinion for parliamentary initiatives. It spent €90,606 on market surveys, comprising 19,215 to mrbi, €47,433 to Ogilvy and €23,958 to Behaviour and Attitudes, the latter two of which were described as "research and training".