The Department of Justice has defended a decision to downplay the results of an online survey it conducted on the abolition of the biannual clock changes after the survey did not chime with an official opinion poll.
The Government has refused to support the scrapping of summer and winter time and confirmed that Irish clocks would continue to be put back by an hour at the end of October and then put forward at the end of March.
It cited Brexit and Border concerns as the main reasons for the decision.
Minister for Justice Charles Flanagan said if the changes were implemented unilaterally in the Republic then the UK, including Northern Ireland, would be in a different time zone for seven months of the year.
He said it would be “profoundly serious if two different time zones were to exist on the island of Ireland” and he cited an opinion poll which was conducted as part of the public consultation process as a factor in reaching the decision.
In the poll of 1,000 people 66 per cent were in favour of abolishing the biannual clock change but four out of every five people said they would oppose the change if it were to result in a different time zones north and south of the Border.
However, Mr Flanagan failed to highlight an online survey of more than 16,000 people which was carried out by the Department of Justice.
It found that a significant majority of participants did not believe different time zones in the North and the Republic should be a major consideration in deciding whether or not the practice of changing the clocks twice a year was scrapped.
Only 21 per cent of those who took part in the online survey said the issue of having the same time zone as Northern Ireland was important while 67 per cent said it had no impact on their response.
A spokesman for Mr Flanagan said while such a large online vote was welcomed, those who took part in the online survey “were self-selected and not in any way representative of the broader population”.
He suggested that people who took part in the survey may have a high level of interest in the specifics of the clock issue and less of an interest in the consequences changes might have in a post-Brexit world.
“While 16,000 is a high number and one we were very pleased with, we have to be careful with the online polls,” he said.
