TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen said that the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll, which shows a marginal increase in support for Fianna Fáil, was not significant in the context of the task facing the Government.
Mr Cowen, speaking in Clonmel, said that the Government would continue with its work, irrespective of what is contained in polls. “Polls are just an indication of opinion at any given time but the important thing is that the Government is committed to, and directed at, doing what’s right by the country,” he said.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny described the poll results as “boring” on the basis that there had been no dramatic shifts in support for any party.
“This is a boring poll. There is not any great news in it. It’s all within the margin of error. It’s things as they were. Fine Gael are still very much in front here. That’s very encouraging from our perspective,” he said.
Mr Kenny, who was attending a party event in Galway, rejected the claim that Fine Gael’s recent ascendancy over Fianna Fáil in opinion polls was slipping. It was the latest in a long series of polls which showed that Fine Gael was the most popular party, he told RTÉ.
He said that come the next general election, Fine Gael will “repeat what we did in June 2009 by inflicting another serious defeat on Fianna Fáil”.
The poll results show the state of the parties as: Fianna Fáil, 22 per cent (up two points); Fine Gael, 32 per cent (up one point); Labour, 24 per cent (down one point); Sinn Féin, 8 per cent (up one point); Green Party, 3 per cent (down one point); and Independents/ Others, 11 per cent (no change).
The Government’s satisfaction rating has improved by five points to 19 per cent from a historically low 14 per cent, although some three-quarters of those polled expressed themselves dissatisfied with its performance.
Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore said that the poll confirmed his belief that politics in Ireland had become a three-way contest, with Fianna Fáil now being rejected by three-quarters of the electorate.
“The real news is how consistent it has been. This is the first poll of 2010 and it’s telling us exactly the same as all the polls in 2009.” Asked if the 24 per cent support levels for the party was a little flattering, given it has not achieved that support in elections, Mr Gilmore said: “The sequence of polls are more a video than a snapshot. If you take all the Irish Times polls since the beginning of 2009, they are consistently saying the same thing. As far as the Labour Party is concerned, our support has been consistently in the 20 [per cent plus bracket] and those results were confirmed on the European elections, when we won quarter of the seats and in the local elections.”
Elsewhere, Green Party leader John Gormley said he was not disappointed by his party’s failure to rise in the polls alongside Coalition partner Fianna Fáil.
Mr Gormley said the party was at exactly the same level as it was last year, despite a number of very harsh budgets.
He said he hoped the Green agenda would come to the fore through the implementation of the renewed programme for government. “You have to realise this has been a very, very difficult period and for a smaller party in Government it is going to be perhaps even more difficult. We have taken very hard decisions and as a consequence we are not going up in the polls,” he said.
