A party leader's popularity and issues such as health and crime have relatively little significance in determining how people vote in general elections, new research has found.
Rather, the two most important determinants of party choice are family voting history and personal acquaintance with a candidate, with almost 75 per cent of voters in the 2002 general election having met the candidate who received their first preference.
These findings, which are to be published next year, were presented yesterday to an international conference at Trinity College in Dublin. They were produced by the Irish National Election Study (2002-2007), which is examining how Irish people voted in the last general election and the likely factors that will influence their voting behaviour in the next election.
The study is the largest of its kind to be conducted in Ireland, with the same 2,500 voters having been polled every year since 2002 and another 1,800 to be interviewed after the next election.
The researchers found the economy to be the most significant electoral issue, although its effect on voting patterns strongly favours incumbents: a strong economic climate gives a greater boost to the outgoing Government than a weak climate gives to the Opposition.
Where voters felt that crime levels had increased or that the health service was deteriorating, they did not necessarily blame the Government.
"Crime tells you nothing whatever about people's party choice. Their views on crime are not related at all to their views on where they'll vote," said Prof Michael Marsh of Trinity College. He and UCD's Prof Richard Sinnott are the project's principal investigators.
"Everybody thinks it's (crime) gotten worse, but they don't really blame the Government for it, and even when they do, it's not significant enough for them to then vote against the Government."
The same was true of health, he said, with the Opposition in 2002 benefiting little from voters who thought the Government was "wrecking the health service".
While a leader's popularity could exert a marginal - and therefore potentially critical - effect on votes, the researchers did not regard it as one of the most significant influences.
"If you think about it, when Bertie ran against (John) Bruton in 1997, they weren't all that far apart in the opinion polls in terms of popularity. Fianna Fáil got 39 and FG got 27," Prof Marsh said.
In the following election, in 2002, many who said they believed Michael Noonan to be a weak leader still voted for Fine Gael. Former PD leader Mary Harney scored a consistently high satisfaction rating while her party's share of the vote remained relatively low.
According to the study, two factors outweighed all others: family voting history and having met a candidate.
"There is still an important element that people vote Fianna Fáil because they're Fianna Fáil. Some people vote Fine Gael because they're Fine Gael," Prof Marsh said.