The Government parties will be more than satisfied with the latest opinion poll findings as they contemplate the general election, writes Ian McShane.
Since the last Irish Times/MRBI poll was conducted four weeks ago, the political landscape has been dominated by the abortion referendum campaign, interspersed with the Progressive Democrat and Fine Gael party conferences.
Both parties would have hoped for a lift in support levels as a direct result of the conferences and the media exposure relating to them. From a party political perspective, there has been very little movement in support levels over the past month, something which could well change once the result of next week's referendum is clear.
A second successive referendum defeat could well damage the credibility of the Government parties particularly, as could still happen on the basis of yesterday's poll, if the referendum is lost as a result of some voters who have no understanding of the issues involved voting No in protest at the confusing nature of the debate presented to them.
At the same time, a victory in what has been a hard-fought and difficult debate can only serve to bolster their positioning as an efficient and cohesive coalition.
Comparing this month's poll with last month's (see tables A & B), the Government parties will be more than satisfied with a rise of two points in Government satisfaction levels and one point in support for each of the coalition partners.
Bertie Ahern's personal satisfaction rating remains in the high 60s, while Mary Harney's has received a two-point lift in the wake of her party's conference and recent high-profile candidature announcements.
Of the opposition parties, the only one to have improved its positioning, although not to any statistically significant degree, is the Labour Party, whose core vote has increased to 8 per cent, and has again overtaken Fine Gael as the second biggest party in the Dublin region.
Ruairí Quinn's rating as Labour Party leader remains unchanged, although it has actually declined among supporters of Fianna Fáil, and correspondingly increased within Fine Gael's support base.
Fine Gael will be disappointed that its core vote has remained static at 15 per cent since January, and that party leader Michael Noonan's personal satisfaction rating has dipped below the 30 per cent mark to 29 per cent, the lowest rating for a Fine Gael leader in eight years.
Perhaps more worrying for the opposition leader is the fact that his dissatisfaction rating has increased over the same period by a substantial nine points. Delving further into the data reveals that his dissatisfaction score has increased evenly across the different age groups, but more so among females than males.
There has been some criticism in the media of Fine Gael as a party which lacks a distinctive identity and definitive direction; that it needs to uniquely associate itself with a series of policies and aggressively target those for whom these policies really matter.
Within this context, it would be worthwhile isolating areas of policy which are currently of more concern to Fine Gael core supporters than to supporters of any other party.
If such areas exist, the party could perhaps begin to fine-tune its offering to the electorate with a view to reasserting itself as a dynamic force for change as it was perceived by many in the 1980s.
A special analysis of a question asked in the poll in relation to key issues of concern to voters allows us to begin to do just that.
At an overall level, it emerges that health services is the one area of most concern to the electorate, spontaneously mentioned by 61 per cent as likely to influence the way they vote. Other single issues of concern include crime and security (31 per cent); jobs/ unemployment (30 per cent); inflation/cost of living (26 per cent) and a range of other issues covering economic, social and infrastructural matters.
Respondents were allowed to mention as many issues of concern as they wished at this question, and on average each elector surveyed identified three. Analysis of the data then allows us to begin to identify different groups of electors who are concerned about the same types of issues as each other.
From Fine Gael's perspective, for example, the combined "social" area of education, training, health and medical services is of concern to almost three-quarters of all its voters, more than it is to voters of the other parties, but by no means exclusively so.
The party has of course developed policies in these areas and it is important that they explain them clearly to their current and potential voters between now and the election.
The significant drop in the personal satisfaction rating of Gerry Adams as leader of Sinn Féin (down eight points over the four-week period) is curious, particularly as support for Sinn Féin remains at its all-time national high of 8 per cent recorded in January. Certainly, the party has been subjected to increasing levels of criticism from the main-stream parties over the past number of weeks, most recently when the Attorney General and PD candidate Michael McDowell in effect questioned the standing of Sinn Féin as a truly constitutional party.
On this point, it is interesting to note that the drop in Adams's support has occurred almost exclusively among Fianna Fáil and PD supporters. It is of course too early to say whether the drop in support for Adams is a prelude to lowering levels of Sinn Féin party support generally - the next election poll will tell.
Finally, notwithstanding the potential fallout of an abortion referendum defeat (if it comes to pass) and the unforeseen events which will unfold as the campaign intensifies, Fianna Fáil still remains firmly on course to lead the next government following May's election.
With both the PDs and the Labour Party very much holding their own, Bertie Ahern will already have started at least thinking of the post-election arithmetic.
Ian McShane is Managing Director of MRBI