A poll already in the shadow of a looming election

The shadows are drawing in. And not just seasonally. Increasingly these days all political/budget discussions are framed not only in terms of the exit from crisis but the shadow of a looming election. Not even next year, but 2016. And there's a lot of water to flow under the bridge before then – not least, perhaps, two years of five per cent growth. And yet the latest Irish Times Ipsos / MRBI poll figures will inevitably be read by politicos first in terms of how they augur for the unknowable prospects of each party two years hence. At the very least, the Government parties would be hoping that we would be seeing some small signs of an upturn in their fortunes; a first glimpse of the green shoots of political recovery. No such luck.

Were an election to be held now, this poll suggests that the big winner would be Sinn Féin, up four percentage points to 24 per cent (excluding undecided) on their showing in our last poll in May. Yet the limitations of polling as predictors of election behaviour are reflected in the fact that less than a week after that May poll Sinn Féin actually took only 15 per cent in the local elections. Their detractors will hope their support is now overstated?

Fine Gael, unchanged since May, and on the same 24 per cent as Sinn Féin, are languishing at their lowest level in years, with Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the Government showing satisfaction ratings at pretty miserable levels of 26 and 23 per cent respectively. Mr Kenny has not been as unpopular since late 2010.

And as for Dublin, it is another country. More than one in two Dubs (53 per cent when “don’t knows” are excluded) say they would vote for what might be classed the anti-establishment bloc, Sinn Féin and Independent/Others. Sinn Féin has also seen its poll support in the capital rise by nearly half from 18 to 26 per cent since May. Many voters tempted to back Independents have now plumped for Sinn Féin, a reality that reflects their shared social base and general socialist or community outlook and which should bode well for the party’s general election seats.

And Fianna Fáil in Dublin still finds itself stuck behind Labour (12 and 13 per cent respectively), unable to make up the ground it has very partially recovered in the rest of the country since the general election (from 17 to 20 per cent nationally), while Labour sees a marginal Dublin improvement. Nationally, Fianna Fáil, having declined by a fifth since May, registered its worst Ipsos/MRBI showing since October 2012. This is the party which in June 2008, before the country went belly up, was running at 47 per cent in the polls.

The Coalition leaders may take some crumbs of limited comfort from the polls. In the Taoiseach’s case the John McNulty affair has only disinclined some 15 per cent of Fine Gael supporters to vote for the party, while close to a quarter of voters say they would be more inclined to vote Labour after Joan Burton’s appointment as leader. She also tops the leader satisfaction league on a modest 47 per cent.