Political reaction: Fine Gael and Labour have claimed that Fianna Fáil's strong showing in yesterday's Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll was because of sympathy for Taoiseach Bertie Ahern as opposed to the success of the Government's policies.
Speaking in Cork yesterday Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny denied that the drop of two percentage points in his party's support was a disaster and said that the result "solidifies the fact that the trend over the last 18 months is very far removed from this individual poll".
He said the poll showed that 64 per cent of people believed Mr Ahern was wrong to accept the monies, that he had succeeded in refusing to acknowledge this. The support of Fianna Fáil Ministers for Mr Ahern's position "had an impact for Fianna Fáil, and they will be pleased with that".
"But this poll does not deal with the issues that were raised with me in Ronanstown and Nielstown in Dublin yesterday about the cost of living, about the increase in gas and electricity prices, about the rising escalation of crime in our streets.
And the constant problems of traffic and a lack of educational facilities. They're the real policy issues on which the election will be fought when all of this has died down in the Dáil," he told RTÉ news.
He said Mr Ahern would "obviously" be pleased with the poll result, but he rejected the suggestion that the Opposition had been wrong to raise the payments issue. He said the Opposition was careful not stray into Mr Ahern's personal life.
"I've a public duty as leader of the Opposition and a member of the Dáil to raise issues of national importance. This is about standards. This is about sending out a message of the kind of people that we are. And my view was, and is, that the Taoiseach when he was minister of finance to accept personal payments was quite wrong, and that's been endorsed by his Ministers and by the PDs."
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte described the poll result as "quite remarkable". "I think it's rather a referendum on the Bertie Ahern affair where he admitted taking money for his private use while a minister. I think he wrapped it in his family circumstances and a lot of people clearly empathise with that . . . The Opposition is punished and Fianna Fáil is rewarded, but there you are."
He told RTÉ's News at One that there were "more holes in the Taoiseach's story than there is in a colander", but that people had accepted Mr Ahern's word.
"The public have a right to be wrong. The public have made their decision. It doesn't mean that I have to accept that these are the standards that ought to obtain in Government or indeed that I have to accept the Taoiseach's version of events.
But it's quite clear that very many people believe that the Taoiseach was hard done by the media, and to some extent by the Opposition, although we've been criticised for not going in hard enough because we didn't want to intrude on the man's private life. But it had the effect of us not being able to probe the issue in the manner in which it deserved."
He acknowledged that the Labour Party's performance in the poll was poor, and that its current support was now the same as it was at the last general election. "That's not where I want to be."
He also believed that the poll highlighted a contradictory approach by the Irish electorate, in that two-thirds believed Mr Ahern was wrong to have taken the money. "At the same time . . . 39 per cent of them are prepared to vote for him, to turn a blind eye to what they disapprove of. That's a question for analysis of political culture out there and of us as a people."