A MAJORITY of voters - 65 per cent - wants the abortion issue to be resolved by another referendum, according to the latest Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll, published today.
Only a quarter of voters - 26 per cent - believe that the abortion question should be decided by legislation. Some 9 per cent are undecided.
Meanwhile, overwhelming majorities in all parties want the successor to the President, Mrs Robinson, to be chosen by the people in an election.
Voters were also questioned on two other key issues, crime and taxation. Over three quarters of voters - 78 per cent - agree that crime should be tackled even if civil liberties have to be curtailed. Some 14 per cent disagree.
A total of 57 per cent of voters want taxation reduced even if this means significant reductions in services. Some 33 per cent disagree.
The Irish Times/MRBI poll, which was conducted among a national quota sample of 1,000 electors at 100 sampling points throughout all constituencies in the State on March 26th and 27th, also deals with the main issues on which the parties should fight the forthcoming general election. Crime, law and order and justice, together with unemployment and jobs, are the top priorities of voters.
In the aftermath of the recent controversy surrounding the allegation that a woman had procured an abortion in a Dublin clinic in 1995, and Fianna Fail's response that there should be a referendum and/or legislation to cater for the Supreme Court judgment in the X case, a majority of supporters of all parties now believe that the issue should be decided by another referendum.
The party breakdown on this is as follows: Fianna Fail 70 per cent; Fine Gael 58 per cent; Labour 63 per cent; PDs 69 per cent; Others 66 per cent.
There is no indication in the poll, however, of the nature or intent of the referendum, since the question was not posed.
Mrs Robinson's call for an election to choose her successor in the autumn is backed by 87 per cent of voters and between 80 and 90 per cent of supporters of all parties. Only 10 per cent believe that her successor should be a candidate agreed by all the political parties.
The main issues in the general election campaign, according to the poll, are: crime/law and order, 41 per cent; unemployment/jobs, 40 per cent; drugs, 22 per cent; tax/PRSI, 15 per cent; poverty and the lower paid, 11 per cent; Northern Ireland and peace, 11 per cent; education, 8 per cent; health/hospitals, 7 per cent; cost of living, 4 per cent; water charges, 4 per cent; housing/mortgages, 3 per cent; farming/beef crisis, 3 per cent and other issues, 15 per cent.
Denis Coghlan adds: A decline of eight percentage points in support for Fianna Fail in the Dublin region has caused serious concern within the party. A regional breakdown of the figures gives Fianna Fail only 36 per cent support in Dublin, with middle class voters gravitating towards Fine Gael.
The three Government parties - Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left - have increased their share of the Dublin vote by 3 per cent since January, while the Progressive Democrat vote has remained steady.
Since Dublin will be the cockpit of the coming election, with 47 Dail seats to be decided, particular attention is being paid to voting intentions in the capital. In the past two months, Fianna Fail's share of the Dublin vote has declined from 44 to 36 per cent; Fine Gael's has risen from 20 to 23 per cent; Labour's is up from 11 to 14 per cent; the Progressive Democrats remain at 11 per cent; Democratic Left has risen from 2 to 5 per cent; Green Party support has fallen from 5 to 4 per cent and the Workers' Party and Sinn Fein secure 1 per cent each.
However, due to the smaller scale of the Dublin sample in the poll, the margin of error could be as much as 6 per cent either bay.
