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IT’S ONE YEAR today since the coalition government took office following the February 2011 general election.
In that election, future government partners Fine Gael and Labour took 36 per cent and 19 per cent of the vote respectively.
Fianna Fáil support dipped to 17 per cent and the Green Party lost all of its seats in the Dáil.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin took one in ten votes across the country, and the Independents, Socialist Party, Workers and Unemployed Action Group and People Before Profit Alliance won 15 per cent of the #GE11 vote.
But how have they fared in the opinion polls since then?
The following graphs show a round-up of each of three different types of national opinion poll taken in Ireland throughout the first year:
Note: Due to the different methodologies deployed in the different polls, they are represented in separate graphs, though each starts with the official election results of 25 February 2011.
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Seriously, Sinn Fein must have professional poll people filling all these surveys in.. far from what I see on the ground….
Maybe you should stop staring at the ground.
Keep looking at the ground pretty soon you won’t need to raise your gaze to see labour nd Fine Gaels poll numbers.
Trends are very clear from the graphs.
Fianna Fail is completely stagnant. They’ve hardly touched out of the margin of error since the election. People still don’t see FF as a credible opposition. At this rate they’ll actually lose council seats in 2014. They need to go back to 25% to just hold what they have. A big task ahead.
Sinn Féin is on a clear upward trend reflecting the strong opposition line they’ve taken against the government. The question is how far higher the support can go before change is needed in their strategy. In any case they have the potential to double their support at the next election just like Labour did at the last one.
Fine Gael’s support rose massively with visits from the Queen and Obama and the miraculous change that people saw in Enda Kenny. Now the the honeymoon is over FG is settling to its pre-election range of the early 30s.
Labour’s support has varied wildly since the election but it seems to have settled of late in the mid-teens. The drop in Labour support appears to be more severe than that in FG’s vote reflecting the fact that Labour has less influence in the coalition, leading its supporters to look elsewhere, mainly Sinn Féin. It’s the same phenomenon we see with the Lib Dems in the UK.
Looking ahead I predict that Labour’s vote will continue to be lost to Sinn Féin and that Fianna Fail will continue to be stagnant for the foreseeable future. As a result Fine Gael will continue to have a commanding lead over the other parties but the potential for that vote to be lost to a new party or to independents is a real possibility. In any case it all depends on how the economy performs.
The vote for FG will hold in they discover the ability to tell the truth for a change and honour their promises.
It’s ultimately the performance of the economy that influences the polls. Sadly we had a FF government that for years wasn’t telling the truth yet they were continually re-elected because the Tiger was so strong. That’s what really matters in people’s lives. FG/Labour’s promise was primarily to get the economy going again and if they achieve that, little else will matter.
So just ignore all the pre-election promises.What about “doing politics differently”should we forget that one aswell?
No I’m not saying that should be ignored I’m pointing out that the general public will view it with less importance than you do. I personally view these issues as very important but the view of politicos like ourselves is totally different to that of the general public and they will vote on the general economic climate of the day.
Can’t disagree with that, it’s calling a spade a shovel.
Nice easy-to-read graphs – good work from Miguel Molina of TheJournal.ie’s tech team. Thanks Miguel!
for a moment i thought i was on the underground in london…..
Tom, I am afraid its only continuity FF supporters that are giving support to FG … Hence the’ FFG’ label you guys now have… As far as ill educated, i think you guys need real help. You have a Teacher leading your party … a Teacher who knows shag all about the basic rules of economics … IE if you depress peoples ability to spend, it automatically knocks onto business…. and its a cycle which must be broken… but your teacher doesnt understand this…
If you label someone like me ill-educated again (I am one of the lucky people earning a very high wage in this country,with a degree in Information Technology, 19 years multi-national semi-conductor experience) you will lose any semblance of credibility that your party has left. Its FG who wanted to throw a party yesterday, on the same day 2500 redundancies will be forced from one single employer. Its FG that allowed their ‘Teacher’ leader pay himself an extra 50,000 a year tax free on top of his salary, and on top of his expenses,… all at the tax payers expense. FG are the new financial terrorists, haven won the crown from FF.
If you think i am ill-educated and incapable of making an intelligent decision when chosing a Political party that is capable of delivering a real change to Irish politics, then you my friend are delusional, and incapable of doing anything other than following your party politics blindly.
And who leads Sinn Fein a “barman”, kinda makes your point about a teacher look slightly ridiculous, no!
Yes, Gerry was a bar man before he got his degree….. What is your point??? FG have Peter Mathews espousing very similar economic policies to SF… and Peter is the FG TD with the best qualifications and financial background… Where does Enda put Peter?? In the back benches, nowhere near Finance, where he might be able to do some good. SF now 2 elected TD withs degrees/masters in economics. I dont think Gerry would be so stupid as to ignore tht if he was picking a cabinet,….. Do you ????
Gerry wasn’t just a barman
Sinn Fein in red. Oh dear, you have really been suckered!
Yeah very confusing colours in the graphs. FG should be blue, FF, SF or Greens in green, Labour red and Mick Wallace in pink :D
No more suckered than getting FG/Lab.
They had to pick a golden orange for Labour because “watery” isn’t a colour.
Only clear correlation is Lab losing to SF. Lab over promised on the assumption that they could play the “minor party” in govt card. SF making completely unbelievable comments which sit well with the ill educated.
Which is why politically I’m not worried about the rise of Sinn Féin. They’ve set the bar so high for themselves that if they fall even slightly below it, their support will TANK overnight.
The FG love in rolls on goodnight jimbob.
It is incredibly insulting to claim that Sinn Féin only appeal to the ill educated. Are you genuinely trying to claim that anybody who supports an alternative to the austerity inflicted on ordinary people are ill educated? Sinn Féin are offering genuine economically sound alternatives, that have even been endorsed by the IMF.
Even those on the objective Right have viewed continued austerity as a destructive rather than constructive force in fixing this financial crisis. Burning bondholders and speculators is the right thing to do. Demanding,(not negotiating) with banks to provide liquidity to business is the right thing to do. Using the PRF to stimulate growth is the right thing to do.
Selling State assets at fire-sale prices is the wrong thing to do. Inflicting austerity on the majority of the population thus creating stagnation in the economy is the wrong thing to do. Not demanding a total restructuring of the debt to sustainable levels to facilitate payment and growth is the wrong thing to do.
Not just the ill educated. The stupid also.
Explain to me the “stupidity”? Leaving out of course the usual Fine Gael cliched diatribe.
Stupid because they believe SFs guff that having no austerity is possible. “If you have 30 billion in this pocket and you spebd 50 billion….and no one will loan you money….”
Job creation is a good thing.
Tom, correct me if am wrong, but did FG not support increasing spending all the way through 2000-2011??? Were they stupid then??? And not now???
Well proposals to stimulate growth to get out of recession seem infinitely more intelligent than constant austerity. I agree in principle that of course there needs to be a balanced budget eventually. But renegotiating the debt, to allow room for growth in the short and medium term will result in a much better long term forecast, for Ireland and the E.U.
Jeeze Tom, the lack of pedigree is showing up in you tonight.
Good man Tom, unlike FG you never fail to deliver!
Wow Tom you sound like a 5yr old, why not wave a flag and shout ” I’m so much better than everybody else” Who’s really stupid I wonder after all its u who supports a group of career politicians that told every sort of lie to get into power and now there in they costantly backtrack on rolled out plans, pick consistantly on the soft targets for their cuts. Refuse to use the referendum to hammer out a deal. Sounds like Its driving you mad that Sinn Fein are evolving by the day and becoming a credible threat to your useless spineless bunch. Are you really Leo Varadkar maybe, your insulting tone towards the population might be giving you away.
Apologies. SF are a very smart bunch of folks who have made coherent proposals on the budget deficit. And elsewhere in the land of make believe…..
It seems to me that opinion, unsurprisingly, is shifting significantly to the left. The big story for the past 4 years has been the economy and when things are tough, the left wing socialist message can be seductive.
I suspect that SF gains have been at the expense of the Labour Party and the left wing of FF. The reduction in FG support is probably post election blues – the first time FG voters finding the lack of a magic wand dIsappointing. The party who should worry is Labour. It is Labour that SF have clearly targetted. Labour has moved to the centre right in order to be in government and now find themselves in a position not dissimilar to the one that the SDLP were in before SF went after them.
Ah the good old ‘sinn feiners=uneducated’ chestnut, and exercise in irony if ever there was one.
* AN exercise in irony
*an exercise in irony
Ailis needs three attempts to post once sentence..great way to disprove the theory that shinners are dumb.
Still at least she doesn’t have an account called anonymous that links you to her facebook page
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