Flying SF could soar even higher with a new leader

With no end in sight to economic hardship, the established parties are really feeling the heat

IF WE needed confirmation that volatility endures in Irish politics, it came this week in the results of the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI opinion poll.

For Eamon Gilmore and the Labour Party the poll figures are disastrous. Political parties, even when in government, usually get a bounce in the wake of their conference or ardfheis. Despite the fact that this poll was in the field in the days after Labour’s big event in Galway, the party is down 6 per cent from where it was last October. Fine Gael is also down, albeit by only 3 per cent.

The overwhelming majority that the two parties have in Dáil Éireann is unaffected, of course, by these poll figures but the loss of support will impose further strains on both, and on the Labour Party in particular. Mixed with other tensions the decline in support will serve to erode the stability in the Coalition relationship.

The drop in Eamon Gilmore’s approval ratings suggests the public is less impressed with him in Government than it was with him in noisy opposition. His task as leader is made all the more difficult by the fact that his TDs will be even more nervous now about the rise of Sinn Féin.

The fall in Enda Kenny’s ratings suggests that while he initially impressed as Taoiseach, that novelty is now wearing off. At this stage, just 15 months after the election, the approval ratings for Kenny’s Government are at the lowest for any government in history other than the Cowen government in its last months.

Popular discontent with austerity is as intense and it’s directed now at the new Government parties.

On one level it is surprising the Fianna Fáil vote has held up in this poll. They are down a statistically insignificant 1 per cent. In normal times one would have expected that the findings of the Mahon tribunal would have depressed Fianna Fáil’s support even further. The party has now shrunk down to the core of its core support. There appears to be little room for further shrinkage.

Some may seek to suggest that Micheál Martin’s tough response to the Mahon report helped Fianna Fáil avoid a further slide. The reality is more complex.

Martin’s own approval ratings are also falling, albeit not as sharply as those of Kenny and Gilmore.

Fianna Fáil is locked into supporting most of the Government measures. It signed up for them in the IMF deal and otherwise. This means Micheál Martin and his depleted parliamentary party can do no more than criticise the Government for administrative or communications errors in the handling of proposals for property taxes or water charges. They cannot contest the policy itself.

This, together, with the fact that anger at the party is still intense, explains why Fianna Fáil is not benefiting from the slide in support for the Government parties. The ground is shifting under Fine Gael and Labour but the movement is toward Sinn Féin and the Independents. Fianna Fáil is still left stranded.

The increase in support for Sinn Féin reflected in this and the previous poll is extraordinary. Sinn Féin is not just rising in the polls, it is soaring.

In one Ipsos/ MRBI poll early last October they jumped to 18 per cent. In another later that month they slipped slightly back to 15 per cent. In this week’s poll they are up another 6 per cent to 24.

The only disappointing figure for Sinn Féin in this poll is the further decline in Gerry Adams’s approval ratings. Although he now sits in Dáil Éireann, his Northern origins seem politically unattractive to many Southern voters. He also now looks and sounds jaded to many voters, even those otherwise impressed by the younger members of the party’s leadership team.

Sinn Féin could get a further bounce whenever they change their leader. Since they are on the rise anyway they may choose to delay such a changeover, at least for another while.

Before our politics hit this turbulent patch shifts on this scale over a couple of polls would have been seen as seismic. The Sinn Féin rise of 14 points in 15 months still registers strongly on the Richter scale. The tectonic shifts in Irish politics are ongoing.

The 2011 election gave rise to a dramatic change in government but it did not set our politics in a new mould. The underlying economic and social context in which our politics operates is even more precarious now for the established parties than it was 15 months ago. Then there was reason for the electorate to hope that a recovery would come, that austerity would ease and that a change of government would help.

Now, however, worry and frustration have become embedded.

Tens of thousands who at the time of the 2011 election were unemployed are now long-term unemployed. The absence of growth means their prospects of employment seem increasingly remote.

Hundreds of thousands of middle-income families who have been struggling month to month to meet mortgage and other payments now see no end to the struggle. Petrol and other prices are rising appreciably. The impact of VAT increases and other budget changes are kicking in. Homeowners now also face demands for the household tax. Meanwhile all the talk is of large bills for property taxes next year and new bills for water the year after.

The Government is beginning to falter in its communications. The heightened expectations generated during the 2011 election are now deflating.

It’s the real economic hardship being felt and feared by voters, however, that explains the political shifts reflected in this poll. As long as our economic situation remains uncertain, our politics will continue to be unsettled. For now at least, Sinn Féin are the primary beneficiaries of this volatility.