A slim majority of voters believe the current Government did not go far enough in tackling climate change – significantly more than those who believe it has gone too far.
An Irish Times/RTÉ/TG4/Trinity College Dublin exit poll by Ipsos B&A found that 51 per cent of respondents felt the Government has not gone far enough in its actions to address climate change.
With early tallies indicating that the Green Party will struggle to retain many of its 12 seats, including in its Dublin heartlands, the fortunes of that party seem to be disconnected to an extent from voter views on the required ambition for climate policy.
The polls find that in Dublin, 62 per cent of voters feel the Government is not doing enough on climate, falling away to 48 per cent in the rest of Leinster, 44 per cent in Munster, and 50 per cent in Connacht/Ulster.
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Just under a third of Irish voters – 29 per cent – believe that the Coalition’s actions are “about right”, with 20 per cent saying it has gone too far.
The results suggest that younger cohorts have an expectation that the Government should have done more – with 60 per cent of 18-24 year olds and 63 per cent of those between 25 and 34 saying not enough has been done.
This falls away among older cohorts – but not steeply, with 46 per cent of those aged 65 or older also believing more should be done. The highest support for the proposition that the Government has gone too far was among those aged 35-49, where a quarter believe that proposition.
Sinn Féin voters are divided on the question, with a majority (54 per cent) believing the Government has not gone far enough – however, 28 per cent of its supporters say it has gone too far, illustrating the party’s challenge where parts of its vote react in starkly different ways to the same policy question.
On the centre left, 77 per cent of Green voters believe more action was needed, with 84 per cent of Social Democrats voters saying more should have been done. Support was slightly softer among Labour Party supporters, where 68 per cent said more should be done.
Among the large parties of Government, a large minority of Fianna Fáil voters said more should have been done (47 per cent), a similar level to Fine Gael, where 44 per cent supported that view.
Exactly half of respondents said that the Government does not do enough to support the Irish language. Interestingly, support for that proposition was significantly stronger in the younger cohorts than among older people, with 66 per cent of 18 - 24 year olds of that view, falling to 41 per cent among those aged 65 and older.
Some 41 per cent of voters were of the view that Government action to support the Irish language was sufficient, while just eight per cent of respondents felt the Coalition did too much in this area.
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