ANALYSIS:Publicity over change of taoiseach has boosted Fianna Fáil at the expense of Fine Gael, writes STEPHEN COLLINS.
THE SCALE of the Fianna Fáil recovery in the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll indicates that the timing of the decision by Bertie Ahern to make way for Brian Cowen has worked very well for the party. The outgoing Taoiseach's long goodbye and the celebrations surrounding the election of the new leader generated enormous positive publicity that translated into renewed support for the main Government party.
In the six years since the general election of 2002 Fianna Fáil only achieved a 42 per cent rating once in a TNS mrbi/ Irish Timespoll and that was almost exactly a year ago, in the last poll before the general election that returned the party to power for the third time in a row.
The other side of the coin is that Fine Gael has slipped back to its lowest poll rating in almost 18 months and the party leader, Enda Kenny, has also suffered as the media focus remained on his Fianna Fáil rivals for almost two months.
However, Labour has increased its level of support and the steady rise in the rating of the new party leader, Eamon Gilmore, has continued. It is his best poll rating since he took over the party after Pat Rabbitte's resignation and he has edged past Kenny.
In the longer term one possible cause of concern for Cowen is that he attracts a significantly lower satisfaction rating in Dublin than in the rest of the country. While his national average is 52 per cent this drops to 39 per cent in the capital compared with 54 per cent in the rest of Leinster, 55 per cent in Munster and 63 per cent in Connacht Ulster.
One of the reasons for Cowen's solid satisfaction rating is that he attracts a good rating from Fine Gael voters with 42 per cent of them expressing satisfaction, the same level of support that the new Taoiseach attracts from his Green partners in Government. By contrast Fianna Fáil voters give Enda Kenny a very low satisfaction rating, driving his overall standing down.
The new Taoiseach and the leader of the Opposition have one thing in common. Both of them get their lowest ratings in Dublin. In fact Eamon Gilmore has passed both of them out in the capital, indicating that the Labour leader has an opening that he should be able to exploit to his party's advantage over the next 12 months in the run-up to the local and European elections.
The recovery in the Fianna Fáil vote is also weakest in Dublin where the party is on 34 per cent, compared with 39 per cent in Munster, 44 per cent in the rest of Leinster and 45 per cent in Connacht Ulster. The party has recovered ground in its traditional base of working-class C2DE voters although it is strong across all social classes. The party attracts greater support among women than men with the over-65s being its strongest age group.
By contrast Fine Gael is strongest in the 18 to 24 age category, followed by the over-65, but its weakest age group is the 24 to 35 age category. The party is equally attractive to men and women but its social support is skewed heavily in favour of the farming community where it attracts twice as much support as among any other group. That is reflected in the fact that its strongest region is Connacht Ulster and its weakest is Dublin.
By contrast Labour is strongest in Dublin where it is on 15 per cent, just two points behind Fine Gael, and well ahead of its rivals Sinn Féin and the Greens. Labour's next strongest area is Munster where it gets 10 per cent followed by Connacht Ulster where it gets 9 per cent with the rest of Leinster a disappointing 8 per cent.
Ominously, though, Labour is strongest among the over-65s where it is on 16 per cent but its share of the vote then falls steadily with each age cohort and it is only on 6 per cent among the 18- to 24-year-olds. Surprisingly the party is stronger among the better-off ABC1 voters than among working-class voters.
Sinn Féin support is evenly spread, which will make it difficult for the party to retain a seat in next year's European elections although it may be an advantage in the local elections. The party is strongest among the youngest age group and weakest among the over-65s. As in previous polls there is a huge variation in the level of support Sinn Féin attracts among men and women. Its level of support among male voters is three times that among women.
The opposite is the case with the Green Party where women are more than twice as likely as men to support the party. The slippage in the Green vote since the last poll is significant and it is now trailing far behind Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens in Dublin where it is only getting 4 per cent. This will make it difficult for the party to win new seats and even hold on to its current councillors in next year's local elections.
The PDs have slipped back to a core vote of 1 per cent and on this level of support it is difficult to see how the party will survive in the long term. There is no variation across region or age group although in class terms it is on 2 per cent among middle-class voters and doesn't register at all among C2DE voters.
The immensity of the task facing the new party leader, Senator Ciaran Cannon, is demonstrated by the fact that his satisfaction rating is just 16 per cent but the number who have no opinion is an enormous 72 per cent. It shows that the first problem facing Cannon is to make the electorate aware that he exists before he can try and persuade them that he is capable of doing a good job.
Bertie Ahern's decision to step down from the Taoiseach's office when he did clearly served to change the political atmosphere. When asked if they thought Ahern was right to resign as Taoiseach when he did, 70 per cent said he was right to resign while 24 per cent said he was wrong to resign and 6 per cent had no opinion. Fianna Fáil supporters were more inclined than other to say Ahern was wrong to go but there was still a two to one majority among party voters who said it was the right decision.
On the issue of the former taoiseach's personal finances, there was a softening of attitudes since his resignation. While 65 per cent of people said he had not given the full picture about his personal finances and tax liabilities and still had further questions to answer, this represented a drop of 13 points in the number holding that view by comparison with the last poll in January.
Fianna Fáil voters in particular were inclined to swing back towards believing Mr Ahern's version of events.