OVER THE past three years, the political landscape in Ireland has changed beyond all recognition. Who could have imagined that Labour’s vote would treble or Fianna Fáil’s vote would halve?
The primary aim of the Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI series of polls is to monitor these trends and provide readers with a measure of the likely outcome of a general election at a particular time.
The tools and techniques used by Ipsos MRBI to measure voting intentions are continuously researched, monitored and calibrated to accommodate changes in the voter population and their voting habits, consistent with international best practice in political polling.
The adjustment model introduced by Ipsos MRBI in 1999 is static, designed to adjust for party support levels that over time move within a relatively narrow range. More recently, support levels have broken through historical limits, creating the need to move from a static to a dynamic adjustment model.
In essence, a dynamic model will apply variable adjustments depending on the level of support registered for each party.
Ipsos MRBI has been tracking voting intentions internally on a monthly basis to be able to calibrate our dynamic adjustment model. Our analysis is almost complete and the new approach will be introduced for the next Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll.
This new model will provide the additional flexibility needed to reflect the future opinions and preferences of an increasingly volatile Irish electorate.