‘Irish Times’ poll: Some end of year solace for centrist parties

As a tumultuous political year at home and abroad trundles towards its close, the final Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI opinion poll of the year offers some seasonal encouragement for the much put-upon political centre.

The best news is for Fianna Fáil, which sees its support jump by four points to 30 per cent since the last poll in early October. The ever-growing number of people who follow these things closely and critically will note, however, that this comes after a seven-point drop in the last poll. And that in turn came after a nine-point jump registered in the July poll.

So if the important thing in polls is not so much who's up and who's down in a given month, but rather what the trajectory is over the medium term, then it's fair to say that support for Fianna Fáil is in the mid-to-late 20s, a bit ahead of Fine Gael. Not the dominant force it was, for sure, but the biggest among a number of medium-sized groupings.

News of Fianna Fáil gains usually discommodes Fine Gaelers and the numbers will do nothing to assuage the nerves of the TDs who think the party will never again beat Fianna Fáil as long as Enda Kenny is on the posters.

But support for the party – at 26 per cent today, one point ahead of October – is pretty solid. If it shows none of the recent potential for growth that Fianna Fáil’s numbers suggested, the medium-term average for Fine Gael suggests that it has a bedrock of support amounting to about one-quarter of the electorate. In times when incumbent governments all over the world are suffering from the frustrated expectations of their voters, that’s a respectable base after nearly six years of government. Satisfaction with Kenny jumps by seven points to 36 per cent, his best showing since May 2012.

Labour support also shows a slight, within-the-margin-of-error improvement, rising a point to 6 per cent, while there is a six-point increase in satisfaction with the Government to 34 per cent.

Best rating

If that strikes you as low, at only a third of voters, it’s the highest rating this Government has received so far. The previous Fine Gael-Labour government was consistently lower, bettering 34 per cent only as far back as October 2011.

So in an atmosphere where voters are reluctant to give governments credit for anything, today’s numbers are quite alright. They’re not stellar, by any stretch of the imagination. But they’re okay.

Sinn Féin falls by two points today – inside the margin of error – to 17 per cent, and support for the Independents and small parties falls by four to 20 per cent. Taken together, that amounts to a fall of six points in the last two months for those who would cast themselves as the outsiders, the anti-establishment.

Support for the Independents has fallen from 30 per cent at the February election to 20 per today. Of course, the complicating factor in this is the presence of both Government and non-Government Independents within the group. But as satisfaction with the Government rises, there is no evidence that the fall in support is due to their participation in Kenny’s administration.

Anti-establishment

The rise of the outsiders – principally in Sinn Féin and the left-wing Independents – at the expense of the old, dominant forces has been one of the main legacies of the economic collapse and the age of austerity that followed it. It would be too much – and way too early – to say the phase of anti-establishment growth in our politics has peaked. No single poll is enough on which to build a lasting political analysis, but we can say fairly that there is no evidence today that the forces of anti-establishment politics are growing here as we have seen elsewhere.

Voters are certainly not greatly enamoured of the present government, but nor do they appear to have switched off from it or written it off.

For much of the period since the crash, the power of governments to define their own circumstances was greatly limited by the fiscal realities they faced. Those conditions have changed a bit. The fate of this unusual Government, and the course of politics in the medium term, will be decided by how Kenny and his Ministers choose to adapt to them.

The poll suggests the public may be prepared to give them some leeway. The recent history of Irish politics suggests they would be unwise to overestimate that.