ANALYSIS:Government's modest satisfaction rating is the one concern for Coalition parties
THE GOOD news for Enda Kenny and Fine Gael in the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll is that the honeymoon continues. While the controversies of recent weeks were widely perceived by the media to have taken some of the gloss off the Government, voters are still taking a benign view of the two parties in coalition.
One source of worry for the Government, though, is that its satisfaction rating is a modest 37 per cent and its dissatisfaction rating is a substantial 55 per cent. More significantly, a majority of Labour voters express dissatisfaction with the Coalition’s performance.
Nonetheless, the striking feature of the poll is that Fine Gael is now occupying the dominant position that Fianna Fáil occupied for so many decades with a solid spread of support across all regions, age groups and social classes.
The party’s vote in Dublin now stands at 37 per cent, an increase of just one point since the last poll before the election, but it has increased its lead over Labour as the biggest party in the capital.
While the party’s standing has fallen six points to 38 per cent in Kenny’s home territory of Connacht-Ulster in the wake of the Roscommon hospital saga, it has gained four points in Munster to 43 per cent and is also up three points to 35 per cent in the rest of Leinster.
Among the best-off AB voters, Fine Gael is now up to 57 per cent, far ahead of all other parties, and it also has a huge lead among the middle-class C1 voters where it is on 42 per cent. Not surprisingly, it does very well among farmers, but the party also has a modest lead over Labour among lower middle-class and working-class voters.
The substantial jump in the standing of Enda Kenny to 53 per cent is the highest he has achieved since becoming party leader nine years ago.
It also makes him, for the first time, the most popular party leader in the country. He has finally made the breakthrough in Dublin, where he gets a rating of 56 per cent.
The news for Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and the Labour Party is not quite as good, but the poll shows that support for the party is holding up well following the first bruising controversies faced by the Government.
The party has dropped one point to 18 per cent since the general election but Gilmore’s standing is up four points to 44 per cent.
Labour support in Dublin has slipped two points to 27 per cent and it is now eight points behind Fine Gael in the capital. Labour is on 20 per cent in the rest of Leinster but has dropped to 12 per cent in Munster while it gets 11 per cent in Connacht-Ulster.
In class terms, Labour’s vote is strongest among the C2 and DE categories. It is fairly evenly spread across most age groups but is lowest among over-65s.
There is some good news in the poll for Fianna Fáil, with the party’s share of the vote inching up by a point since the general election.
The party is now polling a respectable 21 per cent in Munster and the rest of Leinster while it is on 23 per cent in Connacht-Ulster. Fianna Fáil is ahead of Labour in all three regions, which should be a source of hope.
However, on the negative side, the slide has continued in Dublin, where the party is now down to just 9 per cent in a region where it does not have a single TD.
Fianna Fáil support is weakest among the younger age groups and strongest among the over-50s. In terms of social categories, Fianna Fáil does best among farmers, where it is 32 per cent. It is in the high teens across the other social classes.
The increase in Micheál Martin’s satisfaction rating to 37 per cent is another positive for the party. His appeal is evenly spread across regions, age groups and social categories, though, not surprisingly, his highest rating is in Munster.
Sinn Féin is still on the 10 per cent share of the vote it achieved in the general election, which may disappoint the party given its vigorous performance in the Dáil over the past few months.
The party’s strongest region is Connacht-Ulster but its vote is reasonably spread across all other regions. In class terms, the party’s vote is heavily concentrated in the C2 and DE categories. In age terms, Sinn Féin is strongest among younger voters and weakest among the over-65s, where it gets 5 per cent.
At 2 per cent, support for the Green Party has not changed since the election and the road back is clearly going to be very difficult for the party.
The level of support for Independents and Others is down only marginally since the election and is particularly strong in Dublin at 17 per cent.
