I am inclined to believe that the pre-election polls offered a fairly accurate picture of people's voting intentions at the time they were taken - especially as the figures that emerged from polls carried out by several different companies were consistent with each other, writes Garret FitzGerald.
So, insofar as the outcome for some parties on election day was significantly different from that which the pre-election polls had suggested, I believe that this probably was because some voters changed their minds at a late stage.
This did not happen with Fianna Fáil, whose share of the vote on polling day was very much in line with the poll figures - for that party secured 32 per cent of the votes, which was very close to the 33 per cent figure suggested by the polls.
Thus their loss of seats should not have come as a surprise to them, and would have been much greater but for the fact that, as the largest party, they once again secured 7 per cent more seats than their share of the vote warranted, bringing that figure up to 39 per cent.
As for Fine Gael, in the past that party has usually secured a somewhat higher vote than pre-election polls have indicated, perhaps because Fine Gael supporters may have a higher propensity to turn out to vote - a factor which polls find it difficult to take into account. However, on this occasion the scale of the difference between Fine Gael's support as indicted by the pre-election polls, and the much larger vote that they actually secured on Friday week is well beyond anything that could be explained by that factor.
I think that perhaps many Fine Gael supporters had lost heart in the face of almost universal media predictions of their party's imminent demise, but, as a result of positive press comment about its performance on the ground during the election campaign, recovered their faith in its future, and decided after all to vote for its candidates.
The other notable feature of Fine Gael's performance in the local elections was that the party won significantly more seats than their share of the vote would seem to have warranted - 31.4 per cent of the seats secured with only 27.4 per cent of the vote. This positive seat-bonus of almost four percentage points was half as high again as in the last local elections, probably reflecting better anti-Government transfers to Fine Gael on this occasion.
This improved local elections seat-bonus for Fine Gael should warn against any assumption that in the next general election that party will again suffer from its quite exceptional seat shortfall of the 2002 general election - when, through an absolute fluke, its 22.5 per cent of the votes won it only 18.7 per cent of the seats. A reversion in the next general election to Fine Gael's normal positive seat-bonus situation would, of course, give it a remarkable 14 additional seats, over and above whatever seats it might win back by increasing its share of the vote next time out.
By contrast, Sinn Féin's national vote in the local elections fell one-third short of the 12 per cent proportion suggested by the polls. Of course, Sinn Féin did not contest every local election area, but allowing for this factor would raise their national support level to only just over 9 per cent. And that's more than one-fifth below the share of the vote with which the polls were crediting Sinn Féin with a week or so before election day.
Surprisingly, the media seem to have failed to notice this clear setback for Sinn Féin. But, if the commentators have missed this, one can be sure that the very able political minds behind Sinn Féin's strategy will have been quick to take note of the fact that whatever people may say to pollsters, when it comes to the point of voting, many remain reluctant actually to mark a ballot paper in favour of a party that is still associated with violence.
The party's leadership will be making this point to those of their colleagues in the IRA who have hitherto been reluctant to agree to abandoning violence and decommissioning arms.
In relation to personality voting, there has also been no comment on the fact that Mary Lou MacDonald's vote at 14.3 per cent was in fact one-tenth lower than the Sinn Féin party's 15.9 per cent local election vote in Dublin - which seems to suggest that this candidate, who was seen as attractive by the media and the wider community, did not commend herself to some Sinn Féin voters.
By contrast, in the Leinster Euro constituency the two Fine Gael candidates secured 40 per cent of the vote - one-third more than that party obtained in the local elections in this area.
Sinn Féin also suffers from the geographical distribution of their vote. In Dublin its support is concentrated in five of the 12 Dáil constituencies which are predominantly working-class. In these constituencies - Mid-West, South-West, South-Central, Central and North-West - the Sinn Féin local election vote ranged between 17 per cent and 28 per cent which would probably be sufficient to ensure a Dáil seat in a general election.
However, in five other mainly middle-class constituencies it secured less than 8 per cent of the vote, which falls far short of what would be needed to win a Dáil seat. And in North-East and South-East its vote seems to be too low to secure a seat at present.
Outside Dublin, Sinn Féin at present holds three seats, and there are only two other constituencies - Cork North-Central and Donegal South-West - where its local election vote exceeded 10 per cent. On the basis of its present support, it should win a seat in the first of these.
Thus, which, adjusted upwards to just over 9 per cent in order to allow for areas in which they failed to nominate candidates, Sinn Féin's local election support would probably win it only nine Dáil seats, or just 5.5 per cent of the Dáil membership.
However, with some further growth in support, which they might secure if the IRA abandoned violence and decommissioned its arms, three other seats might come within its sights. (In the past, a similar inability to translate votes into seats for geographical reasons was a feature of two other new parties: Clann na Poblachta in 1948 and the Progressive Democrats in 1987).
If Fianna Fáil were to fail to improve its vote between now and the general election, it would probably secure about 65 Dáil seats - while between them the three Opposition parties would probably win around 82 seats. But, of course Fianna Fáil is likely to recover some lost ground in the period ahead. The key question is: how much?