Pat Rabbitte's biggest problem is to get the Labour vote up from the 11% range where it is stuck, writes Stephen Collins, Political Editor
Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte should be reasonably happy with the findings of the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll because, while they don't show any increase in support for his party, they indicate that he is in tune with the public in resisting the notion of going into coalition with Fianna Fáil, even if there is a hung Dáil.
Asked which coalition option they supported, 32 per cent favoured the Fianna Fáil-PD coalition, and 29 per cent opted for the Fine Gael-Labour alternative with the support of the Greens.
However, only 12 per cent backed a Fianna Fáil-Labour government.
Among Fianna Fáil supporters 70 per cent backed the current Government and just 16 per cent favoured a Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition.
Among Labour Party voters 53 per cent supported the Fine Gael-led alternative while 36 per cent opted for a Fianna Fáil coalition.
Fine Gael and Green supporters were overwhelmingly in favour of the alternative coalition.
Although Mr Rabbitte has refused to absolutely rule out going into coalition with Fianna Fáil in such circumstances, he has tried to keep the focus on the contest between the current coalition and the alternative.
He seems to have succeeded in that because with just three months or so to polling day, the voters are clearly focused on the alternative coalition options being put before them and there are relatively few takers for the Fianna Fáil-Labour option in the poll.
A majority of Labour voters remain committed to the Fine Gael alliance going into the election.
His biggest problem now is to get the Labour vote up from the 11 per cent range in which it has been stuck.
On what to do if there is a hung Dáil, Mr Rabbitte appears to have struck a chord with the public by indicating his reluctance to contemplate the option.
Forty one per cent of voters do not want him to go into office with Fianna Fáil, even if there is a hung Dáil, while 32 per cent think he should.
Among Labour supporters the mood is different with 51 per cent to 35 per cent favouring such a move in the circumstances.
It is also noteworthy that while a majority of voters don't want him to do a deal with Fianna Fáil, 44 per cent believe that he will, while just 28 per cent think he will not.
Irish people are either remarkably cynical or very confused about their politicians, going by the poll findings.
They don't want Bertie Ahern to form a government that will depend on Sinn Féin for support - but they don't believe him when he says he won't do it.
They don't want Pat Rabbitte to bring Labour into coalition with Fianna Fáil if there is a hung Dáil - but they think he will.
There is also a big discrepancy between what the voters say they will do, what coalition options they say they prefer and what they think will actually happen.
In terms of party support, the alternative governments are neck and neck when it comes to coalition options.
But the Fianna Fáil-PD option begins to pull ahead when it comes to what people actually think will happen - the Fianna Fail-PD government romps home for a third term.
Unsurprisingly 69 per cent of Fianna Fáil voters expect the current coalition to win but 28 per cent of Fine Gael voters, 31 per cent of Labour voters, 37 per cent of the Greens and 34 per cent of Sinn Féin voters also expect that to happen.
Among Fine Gael supporters, just 44 per cent actually believe the alternative they lead will actually make it, while among Labour voters the figures is just 29 per cent.
One of the biggest problems faced by Fine Gael and Labour is convincing the electorate that there is a real alternative on offer.
Unless people believe they are in with a chance of winning, they are unlikely to get the numbers required on polling day.
The other side of the coin is that a mood of complacency could be fatal to the Fianna Fáil campaign.
Before the latest poll, one Fianna Fáil strategist was warning that the party was playing like a football team that pulled every player back into defence in order to hold on to a lead going into the last 15 minutes of a match.
One fascinating aspect of the poll is that it shows that traditional party loyalties are still alive and well.
It is now more than 16 years since the then newly-elected president, Mary Robinson, proclaimed an end to the tattered flags of the Civil War, but nobody has told Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael or, for that matter, the other political parties.
Supporters of the two big parties appear aghast at the notion of a grand coalition and so do Labour Party, Green and Sinn Féin voters.
Although the left has been calling for decades for a merger of the two big parties, as there is no major ideological difference on economic issues between them, the poll indicates that voters of all parties do not want them to come together to form a government.
Asked if they thought the time had come for Fine Gael to form a coalition with Fianna Fáil in the event of a hung Dáil, a total of 53 per cent said no to a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition while 23 per cent said yes and 24 per cent didn't know or had no opinion.
Fianna Fáil supporters were most hostile to the notion, with 62 per cent saying no and just 21 per cent yes.
Fine Gael voters were marginally less hostile with 57 per cent no and 28 per cent yes.
More surprisingly, the supporters of all other parties were almost equally opposed to the idea of a grand coalition between the two big parties with Labour voters being more hostile to it than Fine Gael supporters.